Posts by I ain't Spartacus

Brexit White Paper published: Broad strokes, light on detail

The price of food should go down. If we leave the Common Agricultual Policy everyone will be richer except farmers. We've always paid far more into the EU to subsidise their farmers than ours got back anyway, that was why Thatcher got the rebate in the first place. So we'll have to divert a chunk of that saving to ours, or risk catastrophic damage to the industry.

But the other part of the CAP is pretty big trade barriers, which has the effect of forcing up food prices, making everyone except farmers poorer. Since there are a lot more of them in France, and their votes are important, this has never changed much.

Oddly we import a whole load of New Zealand lamb, and export a bunch of our lamb to the EU. Perhaps if we eat more of ours we can offset the damage to trade?

This is one of the big areas of uncertainty, and could do lots of harm to our farming industry and also the Irish - so hopefully we can sort something out in the way of a transition agreement to make it less painful, even if we can't manage free trade.

On imports of EU goods though, we can set whatever tariffs we want. So even if they won't take our sausages, we could still allow theirs in tariff free if we chose.

Baguettes are baked here already. We've got the recipe and everything. They're not so much smuggled, as used for smuggling. You can get a small bottle of booze in one when taking illicint booze in your picnic to events where they search you.

Although last time I did the hidden booze in picnic trick, my 8 year old niece grabbed the bag out of my hand and got through security without a bag search. So my rum disguised as sandwiches and thermos of mulled wine got through fine.

Re: cost benefit analysis

macjules,

If the EU impose tariffs on imports from the UK, they pay those costs, not us. If we impose tariffs on their goods coming into the UK, that's what we pay. Though obviously it goes to the government.

Like Trump talking about taxing Mexian imports to pay for his wall. That means the US consumers will pay for it in increased prices.

You are correct though. Tariffs are bad for trade, and international trade makes us all richer. We trade a lot with the EU and so both sides benefit from that large amount of trade. Therefore we should be able to do a deal. They've just done a deal with Canada, another with South Korea, are finalising one with Japan. Why not us? Our regulatory scheme already matches and it would hurt both sides not to. Are they going to penalise their own economies to have a hissy-fit with us?

Well they might. They did it to Greece. But we're bigger, more powerful and more important than Greece. The pain will hurt more, and be more immediate. They still might.

However tariffs aren't as important as people say. We're talking a cost of a couple of percent of GDP. That means we might be 2% poorer for a few years, until the hissy-fit wears off and we do a trade deal when the politicians whose pride was hurt are out of office. Most of our exports to the EU are services, and they mostly don't come under the single market, because our partners didn't want to help us to export to them, even though we'd opened our goods markets that they had an advantage in. Services don't generally attract tariffs.

Anyway, the £60bn is nothing to do with tariffs. That's the figure a few people have bandied about as our cost to the EU for programs we've agreed to pay for but haven't yet happened, plus pensions for EU staff, MEPs and such - and whatever other sundry costs they can come up with. I've seen no breakdown, so suspect it's a fantasy figure designed to cause trouble.

One school of thought is to use it as a negotiating stick to beat us with. Refuse to negotiate on anything else until we've agreed an amount, while the Article 50 clock ticks down - and we're pushed closer and closer to a disorderly exit. It's possible they'll try that, but it looks pretty childish to me.

Re: Words fail me

At the very least all parties concerned should accept that the whole referendum was an appallingly ill-thought-out cockup

I'm sorry but you're wrong. The Referendum was a sign that democracy worked.

I'll admit the campaign was awful, full of bollocks, quite a few outright lies on both sides and not terribly well organised.

But the point is that a minority of people were always unhappy with the EU. And had to lump it when we joined. They lost the referendum, which was belatedly held. That number grew. The ERM and Maastricht treaties being one of the causes. Obviously a lot of the Conservative Party, but there was always a big chunk of Labour support who were also quite anti - they were just better at party discipline and mostly kept quiet.

Then we had the Constitution / Lisbon Treaty farago. We should have had a referendum then, given how unpopular that was, and that an almost identical treaty had gone down to defeat in a couple of referenda already. That, along with growing levels of immigration was a big no-no for a lot more people.

The Referendum Party, that had been a rounding error in the 90s, had spawned UKIP. Which got over 20% at 2 Euro elections, and was polling pretty healthily in general elections too.

So Cameron promised a referendum. You may claim that this was pure cynicism, and party management. I suspect that's unfair, at least partly. But it doesn't matter. Democracy worked. More-and-more people were becoming Eurosceptic, so 2 of our parties offered a Euro-referendum as a policy. Between them, they got over 50% of the vote. We had a referendum.

To prove that this referendum was in fact what people wanted, a majority voted for leave.

So to argue we shouldn't have held it is utterly ludicrous. As I said, it was democracy working. People wanted a referendum and got one. Cameron thought that he could get some concessions (which to be fair to him were a lot better than many claimed), then hold a campaign and say leaving's too risky - then put the issue to bed. Everyone's had a vote, the EU is now mandated for another generation.

If it weren't for the Eurozone crisis, I'd imagine we'd be staying in. But then there's still a good chance the Eurozone will destroy the EU anyway, along with causing another horrible global recession.

Re: TL:DR We want it all but we want to keep the same prices as now from the EU.

The PM has a perfectly good mandate. She's head of the majority party, which campaigned at the last election on an EU referendum. The voters voted out, and so she's moving towards out.

There's an argument for having another referendum on whether we should leave totally or join EEA/EFTA.

There is a problem with doing that. Whatever changes we want to make we have to agree with the other side.

One of the big problems is that the governments of the EU are becoming really anti-referendum. In some senses, they have a point. It's a good blackmail tool: "give me a better deal or the people will vote it down". Thus we're not going to be allowed a referendum on whatever deal is agreed. It'll be take-it-or-leave it. Hence even Parliament won't get that much of a say.

In another sense they're totally and disastrously wrong. They know that people are becoming increasingly Eurosceptic and vote down treaty changes (hence now EU deals desperately try to avoid treaty changes). But they don't try to fix the cause, just the symptom. Have no referenda, and hope for the best. So when the Greek government in 2012 wanted a referendum on the bail-out the PM was forced to resign by a threat of immediately removing banking support. He'd have won that, and then the Greek voters would have been signed up to the bail-out program. Also, all governments find it too easy to blame the EU for stuff they voted for there, and they should try to defend the EU more. But then the EU also needs to be more responsive. And most of all, it must fix the Eurozone, and deal with the hideous levels of unemployment the Euro causes. It'll always be under dire threat until that is dealt with.

In my opinion this is the major problem with the EU. Sometimes it works and acts like a giant democracy, and that's how it sees itself. But sometimes it acts like a bunch of governments negotiating international treaties. And that's fundamentally incompatible with democracy, as it's all about secret deals and uncomfortable trade-offs. But the EU is both. And because making the deals is so hard, long and uncomfortable, it's bloody impossible to change them. So if one part of the EU is suffering badly, they can bring down their own government, but that government doesn't have the leverage to change overall EU policy. And so people become angry and feel disenfranchised.

Re: Words fail me

Referenda are not binding, because nothing is in the constituion. No Parliament can bind another. Futures Parliaments can always change the rules.

However, that isn't a get-out-of-jail-free card for a result you don't like. And it's foolish to keep repeating it.

Yes, the referdum was adisory. And close. But politically it cannot be ignored. The results of ignoring it would be politically disastrous. Are we to tell the electorate that democracy no longer matters? What happens when the next referendum happens. Because there will be one, if this one is ignored. And there'll be political chaos in the meantime. I suppose UKIP would do well out of it though.

Anyway due to the joys of first past the post electoral systems, although only 52% of us voted leave, something like 68% of our Parliamentary constituencies had a leave majority. UKIP and the Conservatives got 50% of the vote between them at the last election - and the Conservatives are now consistently polling over 40%, with UKIP around about 12%.

This referendum cannot be ignored.

Could you persuade a majority to join the EEA or EFTA and keep full free movement? Polling suggests that 50% favour immigration controls and 50% favour more trade. So that's little help. Bugger! May could try for that, but I don't think she could hold the Conservative Party together on it.

I feel sorry for Labour. They've got the top 10 leave constituencies in the UK, and the top 10 remain ones in England too! Try squaring that circle! Their MPs and party members massively favour remain, as do their voters. But their seat distribution is nearly 70% leave.

Of course if they'd not spend the last 20 years calling anyone who talked about immigration controls a racist, and anyone who had serious doubts about the EU a swivel-eyed loon, we might not be in this position...

We've got to trigger Article 50 soon. We made this decision by referendum in June - and the Europeans are getting pissed off at us waiting. If we wait later than March, it'll really piss them off. If we trigger it on the last Council meeting in March that'll also really piss them off, as it's the celebrations of the anniversary of the Treaty of Rome. That would be seen as piss taking.

The European Parliament don't want us in much longer, as they're holding elections in May in 2 years time, and don't want to have another batch of UK MEPs joining up, only in time to leave a few months later.

In summary, the EU have been patient while we got our shit a bit more sorted out. But I think things could get really quite nasty if we keep on stalling. As public opinion has barely moved on the Brexit question, it's pointless running a referendum again. And I'd argue that on a binary constitutional question like this, a referendum is superior to a general election, where you've got to decide on other issues too.

As for no plan, that's a very tired meme now. May said, in essence, exactly the same at the Tory conference as she's said in every speech and interview since. It was always clear that she'd be seeking to leave the Single Market and Customs Union - because that's the logic of the position she's taken and what the EU27 say they'll accept. Why waste 2 years (and any goodwill and political capital) figthing for immigration controls inside the Single Market, which they've told us we can't have.

If we stay in the Single Market, how long until another referendum on getting out of it, as the political classes were seen to be ignoring the referendum result. You may not agree with that, but May's interpretation (along with the polls) is that we have to have immigration controls to satisfy the electorate.

As for any idea of totally ignoring the referendum result, that would be foolish, immoral and electorally disastrous.

Re: cost benefit analysis

Leaving the EU: £60 billion up front.

Pen-y-gors,

That's not a totally unreasonable figure. Well apart from the upfront bit, which is just silly. Entirely depending on how you measure it of course - and whether the people making the comments are just stirring the shit.

We put about £14-£15bn into the EU. We get some back, so our net contribution is about £10bn at the moment. It's going up, because our economy is growing faster due to not being in the clusterfuck that is the Eurozone. The figures are also pretty volatile. But if you ignore rebate and payments back to the UK that puts our contribution at near £20bn. We're in the EU for the next 2 years, so that means we could be said to be paying in £40bn. The current EU spending budget goes on to 2020 - they've allocated a lot of that already and there'll be a massive hole in it if we pull out - so you could argue for us bunging in an another year's contribution the year we leave.

Now if you were being an arsehole, you could call that a £60bn leaving fee. If you were being sensible, and trying to make a construction agreement, you could call that a £10bn contribution to tide the budget over for the year we leave, given we already agreed the budget when we were members. I'd actually offer to pay that final year of the budget at the beginning of the negotiations, to win some goodwill. We'll hopefully be in a transition period in that year, after A50 triggering plus 2 years, so it seems pretty reasonable to me.

Otherwise there'll be a horrible bunfight and emergency budget cuts or cash demands on the other governments. That will anger everyone, and makes us unpopular.

There's also pensions for EU staff. But there's not going to be much of that. We've only been in since the 70s, and the Commission is pretty small by the standards of some of our government departments.

Presumably we'll want so stay in some programs, if they'll let us. And so will keep paying for that.

it's also in our national interests that Eastern Europe does well. It's why we pushed to get them in the EU in the first place. So we should probably offer a billion or 2 a year in continuing contribution to the structural funds, in exchange for some of the goodies we want. We're also the largest contributor to the European Infrastructure Bank and one of the largest to the EBRD and so we should offer to continue that support.

We're also one of the largest users of Europol. But we contribute a third to a half of the intel that goes into their database. We should therefore offer to keep helping there. We also put our troops into Eastern Europe to help defend them. That ought to be worth some goodwill.

So there are things to talk about, and we have things to offer. We also have things we want. But boy is it complicated!

I also think there's a balance. Mostly we should play nice. But I don't see why we should have to accept attacks from major European leaders like Hollande, while meekly saying we're very sorry our stupid voters decided to leave, please don't punish us though we deserve it! We are not worthy! We need a good balance of humility, while still recognising our own strengths. And with goodwill, we can get a sensible deal.

I don't know. I go into every poker game expecting to play 4 aces.

Hmmm, I wonder if that's why I lose so often...

Re: Page 33, Chart 7.1

Tow bars? Is it about the single market in cars?

How can it be otherwise? I don't think the EU27 know what they want yet, so how can we?

There's supposedly an embargo on pre-negotiations with the UK. How successful that is being, behind closed doors, I've no idea. I've not seen anything leak.

May has been pretty clear since her conference speech that immigration is one of the big issues. The Europeans have been totally clear that they won't allow Single Market membership without it. But some of them are saying that even having a free trade agreement such as Canada has just been given (without free movement) is unacceptable cherry picking - and others seem perfectly happy with that as the basis of the deal. With elections in France, Germany and the Netherlands in the next few months, and the Italian government not all that stable, we've no idea who we're negotiating with, what they want and how much they're willing to deliberately accept some pain in order to punish us. We probably won't fully know that for another year.

Probably because a cost-benefit analysis is impossible. We don't have the tools or the ability to predict what's going to happen - particularly as we've no idea what negotiations are going to come up with. We don't even know who the French, Dutch and German governments we'll be dealing with will be run by. Well it's still a pretty safe bet that Merkel will win in Germany, but the coalition partner could be quite important too.

Tariffs in most areas aren't particularly important. It's paperwork, delays and possibly bureaucratic bloody-mindedness that's more of a worry.

Also, rightly or wrongly, the government are determined to try and keep as much of their powder dry for the negotiations as possible. With the big stick of the referendum result behind them, I suspect that will allow them to get through Parliament with minimum concessions.

HMS Queen Elizabeth is delayed, Ministry of Defence confesses

Re: Who cares

Voland's right hand,

I'm sure China has lots of ships with missiles on. Some of them aren't very good though. And they've got to survive to get into missile range. Against a carrier battle group with lots of naval aircraft. And also a picket line of submarines, remember the US have lots over very good attack subs - which are great at sinking ships.

I don't know if saturation attacks can be defeated. Though lots of money has been poured into trying. What I do know is that lots of people talk about them working, pointing out all the downsides of the defence option, and none of the downsides of the attack option. Which are considerable.

Carrier warfare is combined arms with defence in depth. Park your carrier battle group off Shanghai and it's dead. Move it around the (very large) Pacific and it's much harder to concentrate forces. Remember that the US also has nearby airbases, and a very large and capable airforce for support.

The Russian surface fleet is probably no threat whatsoever, I get the impression most of Russia's money has gone on the army, special forces and airforce. They've got good submarines. But they haven't even got the cash to operate the carrier they just sent to Syria for more than 6 months a year. Which is why their pilots aren't so well trained and they lost 10% of their air group in a couple of weeks.

One unanswerable counter to a carrier group is nukes. They make excellent targets.

Re: Who cares

Archtech,

Since 1970 they have been very much like battleships - huge lumbering targets with very little effective power in any *real* war.

Bollocks!

It is entirely possible that you are right, but impossible to know, as such a scenario has not occurred, and so never been tested.

Who's to say that saturation missile attacks work? There's as much reason to imagine the missiles might screw up, and mess with each others flight/targetting) as there is that the defences will.

After all, modern anti-aircraft destroyers are theoretically capable of shooting down 2 or 3 missiles a second, out to long distances, until they run out of ammo. In the case of the AEGIS system in the US, the different ships can even pool their missiles, so as not to all engage the same targets. So a carrier battle group with a couple of anti-air cruisers and some Arleigh Burke destroyers has well over 500 missiles to use - plus the short range SAMs on the frigates and everyone's gattling guns.

Now admittedly if a carrier gets into fighter range of any major power, you'd expect its air group to be overwhelmed by sheer numbers. But far out to sea, where only long range bombers can reach (un-escorted) a carrier is a much more formidable target. The further away you launch your missles from, the less targetting information they'll have, and the easier they'll be to avoid/jam/spoof. The closwer you launch, the more likely you won't get to. If you launch from far out, the air group may also get to shoot some missiles down, before they get into range of the SAMs.

Also, the Russians don't have the vast regiments of naval aviation they used to have. I very much doubt they can field 150 long range naval bombers anymore - so the attacks would be less saturating. Obvously China still does have the numbers. Taking carriers into the Taiwanese straits would almost certainly be suicide. But carrying out a distant naval blockade of China and attempting to escort resupply to Taiwan might be possible. Assuming there are any plans to defend Taiwan, but it's the most likely large scale conflict that comes to mind.

Also, you don't just have to deploy one carrier at a time. A fleet containing say 4 Nimitz class ships has an airgroup larger than the airforces of all but the top 10 global military powers. They could field 5 or 6 squadrons of F18s each, plus tanker, ASW and AWACS support.

Obviously the RN are much smaller - ours would only be a component of a larger allied force if fighting a first rate power.

Carriers were never really designed for fighting land-based air power. And mostly avoided it even in their heyday in WWII. Purely because of the numbers issue, although of course they got into fights against isolated island-based airgroups. Now that global air forces are much smaller, that's probably less of an issue now than it was back then.

Finally carriers also have many uses. Getting air power to places where it's needed. Quickly. You don't have to waste time negotiating for air basing rights, when you can just float into position. You can also use them for disaster recovery, the US Navy did an awful lot of work after the Boxing Day tsunami for example. And also protecting your sea lanes. From both air and submarine threats. If you're a country with a large trading economy that's rather vital. Plus supporting troop deployments in places from the Falklands to Afghanistan, via Sierre Leone.

Re: The French

Submarine aircraft carriers have been done. Sticking a seaplane hangar on a submarine is a trick dating back to the 1930s. The Japanese even launched a few air raids on Sydney (I think it was) from one.

As someone has already mentioned flying aircraft carriers have been done. Did you not see the documentary about the Avengers Assembling?

Re: The French

Just saying share a design with "insert country name here" is silly.

France were supposed to be in the Eurofighter consortium. They stayed in for about 3 years, inserting their own requirements to the design process, which can't help but have delayed things, then left to go and build their own plane to meet their own requirements. They did the same with Tornado.

Jaguar was a successful joint project, so it's not like I'm saying it can't work. Just that military procurement is hard. Really hard. The timescales are long, the requirements always change over the design and build period - because even with mythically perfect management technology and global politics change. Sometimes rather suddenly.

Different militaries also have different design philosophies and operating procedures. It's hard enough to nail the services and then the MOD down to a spec - without people changing their minds and putting nice-to-haves in there. That difficulty probably trebles when you introduce another country's military/bureaucracy/politics into the mix.

Then you realise Charles de Gaulle wasn't the happiest of procurement processes anyway, and maybe think of doing something else.

Oh and I've not even mentioned the politics of who gets the build/design work. If you outsource some of that, then you've lost that capability, and it might take decades to regain it, should your ally suddenly stop cooperating.

The Successor boats will use the same nuclear reactors as the current Astute Class, and the French also have a reactor design they'd prefer. So that probably ends cooperation in that one sentence alone.

We cooperate on the Aster missile and various other projects though. There was talk of a joint carrier project last decade, but I don't think it was ever likely to get off the ground.

Re: Who cares

When you design something to carry aircraft, it's generally a good idea to know whether it's said aircraft are going to work on it, as well as actually have some. Otherwise surely you risk building a massive floating football field for all it's use.

Come off it! I know it's easy to bash the MOD and BAE. And they certainly deserve it a lot of the time. But this is just willful ignorance.

Firstly defence systems are notoriously a nightmare to procure. As you're often buying several bits of kit at once that don't currently exist, and yet will have to work together when they do. Assuming they meet spec.

You're then having to assume that spec hasn't changed, because of changing circumstances. And they do change, unpredictably. Particularly when procurement takes so long. And even if perfectly managed, you don't produce a new class of 70,000 tonne ships in less than a decade.

Then we move on to the aircraft trials you mock. The Royal Navy have never run a carrier this size. They've not run a full fleet carrier since the 70s. Nor an air wing of potentially 48 planes, plus 10-20 helicopters. This will take practise. Lots of it!

They'll have to run trials with small numbers, then analyse what worked and what didn't, then increase the size of the air groups, then the complextiy and speed of the sorties. Then analyse mistakes. Then write some policies and doctrines. Then train the crews to follow them. Then test again. Fuck this up and you'll have crashes, or planes falling out of the sky for lack of fuel on ops, or fuck-ups with live ammunition. The flight deck of a carrier is an incredibly dangerous place - even when you know what you are doing. This will take years to get right.

Had we designed for catapults in the first place, we'd have the teething problems from the use of nuclear reactors delaying us now. So the aircraft work would be easier, but the engineering harder. Instead we've gone for gas turbines, so we could have tried the electromagnetic catapult, but that's not proven and the Americans are having problems with it on their new carrier.

So yes, criticism is fair. The procurement of this project has been a problem. But your point is just silly.

Coming to the big screen: Sci-fi epic Dune – no wait, wait, wait, this one might be good

Re: I am obviously alone in this.

Also, the actor playing Paul. Erk. Or, to be fair, maybe it was his script. All those times when he has to mutter to himself doing his best Basil Exposition really didn't help. So it had real acting/script problems, which are a lot less forgivable than the dodgy special effects.

The eyebrows are brilliant though. Denis Healey INNNNNN SPAAAAAAAAACE!!!!!

So, the new font, then

Re: So, the new font, then

I have to agree, it looks surprisingly different on my PC to my iPad.

Now I admit that Mr iPad has the "retina" display, and Mr PC has a 1600x900 23" monitor on Win 10 - so obviously the iPad would be expected to look nicer.

But the font is definitely a bit vertically squashed on the PC. Just checked on the Win Phone 8 Lumia 735 - and that also seems to be a bit taller.

I'm not sure how much I'd have noticed if I wasn't comparing the two though. But I'd definitely say there's a difference, and I've no idea whether it's a resolution issue, as I don't think I've access to a PC with a better screen.

The font seems OK to me. It just makes 1s look a bit odd. But then maybe that's because I'm so used to stupid fonts that make it impossible to tell the difference.

On the other hand, we do seem to have a few representatives of the font taliban on here. Which is a subject I'm mostly ignorant of and have no strong feelings about. I should care, given my poor eyesight.

I did actually complain last week, when filling out an accessibility survey for the Guardian. Who decided, in their wisdom, to consult on accessibility of their website in light grey 8pt Times New Roman. So I can easily read their page, but was struggling to proof my own submission... I thought serif fonts were out of favour for a reason. And it's particularly odd, as the rest of the site is in a nice, clean sans serif.

Mumsnet ordered to give users' real life IDs and messages to plastic surgeon they criticised

Re: Dr Jesper Sorensen

Baboons you say? Are you sure? I thought they were allergic to marmalade?

NASA honors Apollo 1 crew 50 years after deadly launchpad fire

Re: The agency is recognized the world over as the most careful and risk-averse space agency.

The Chinese almost certainly don't have a lower fatality rate than NASA. They blew up a village in the 90s, with a launch that went out of control. They just covered it up.

NASA have more fatalities in flight. Although nobody else has launched more than 3 people at a time. So as you can expect no survivors in most rocket accidents, you're better counting accidents per flight.

Apple eats itself as iPhone fatigue spreads

Re: I got my first ever iPhone in 2016

I simply didn't want a bugger phone

I agree. These new ridiculously huge phones are a right pain in the arse...

Devonians try to drive Dartmoor whisky plan onto rocks

Re: A small correction...

Obviously you're welcome to put ice in any drink you want. It's your drink after all. But putting ice in good single malt whisky is still wrong.

A bit of water is fine. Some whiskies taste amazingly different with the addition of a bit of water, and so you should probably try them both ways before deciding. If I'm going to drink Laphroaig, that's how I'll take it. I also have a bottle of cask strength Talisker that isn't really drinkable without water. In an ideal world the water should be soft and shouldn't be too cold.

The reason not to use ice, is not that it'll water the whisky, but that it'll chill it. Which means you don't get the flavours. Almost all flavour comes from up your nose, the tongue only being able to detect salt, sweet, sour, bitter and umami. You need all those lovely chemicals to be nice and warm, so they can waft up yer hooter, and make niceness.

Which is why I prefer my whisky from a brandy glass - so my hand can warm it up.

If you want to drink something cheap, especially with a mixer, then ice is no problem. But if you're paying double the price (or more) for good quality stuff, then presumably you're drinking for the flavour, and so ice is a no-no.

Northumbria Uni fined £400K after boffin's bad math gives students a near-killer caffeine high

Re: It seems odd...

So they provided you with a box of food for the over-eating day before the test. But nobody thought to help with the 6 shags in 24 hours? Very disappointing.

I'm deadly serious about megatunnels, vows Elon Musk

Surely the wall will just go 100m underground, and Musk will pay for it...

It's gonna be yuuuuge.

Nuclear power station sensors are literally shouting their readings at each other

Re: Tremendous idea

Well there's also KABOOOM!

But then that does its own sonic communication already...

Trumping free trade: Say 'King of Bankruptcy' Ross does end up in charge of US commerce

The EU don't have a trade treaty with the US. So we'll be on similar WTO terms with the US when we leave.

Personally I don't see us getting a trade deal with Trump, because his rhetoric is anti trade deals and because it also has to pass Congress. But he's not exactly Mr Consistent, and there's a possibility his ego is so yuuuge that he may want to agree one with the UK if we let him play golf on the Queen's private course. Which is a small price to pay I guess.

If the terms are bad, then we already have a trade surplus with them without a trade deal, so no problems.

Also, if we leave the EU, we don't have to set the same tariffs on incoming US goods as the EU do, so there may be some substitution of EU imports for US imports - which might make them happier. If the EU don't give us a good deal, there's even an incentive to play favourites with trade deals and deliberately cause that to happen.

Although there are good arguments for having no tariffs at all on imports, even if people have tariffs on our exports - often legal issues are more of a barrier to trade than tariffs anyway, which is why free trade deals are often so complex. We're the world's second biggest exporter of services, which don't attract tariffs - so problems are all about regulatory agreement.

Incidentally that's why Germany and France were so keen on the single market in goods, but 15 years later have never got close to completing the single market on services, which would favour the UK too much. To be fair it's also because the legal changes required are often much deeper and more involved/complex. But it's also a matter of policy.

We have a rather large trade surplus with the USA.

Samsung set a fire under battery-makers to make the Galaxy Note 7 flaming brilliant

Re: "No plans for the Note 7's re-release were discussed."

Surely the 5th of November would be perfect?

US Navy runs into snags with aircraft carrier's electric plane-slingshot

Re: Its all cobblers

We've got 2 carriers. Assuming 2 air-groups of 48 planes (a large assumption given that one of the carriers will be out of service about 50% of the time), that means you need either 48 fighters and 48 bombers, or 96 fighter-bombers. Re-starting production of the Bucaneer, assuming the required information still existed, would also mean re-starting production of some other British carrier based fighter. Erm, the Phantom wasn't, so you're talking the 1950s designed Sea Vixen I think. The Typhoon is quite a bit UK designed, but I'm not sure if you can make that work off a carrier.

Anyway, the point is, you're talking a small run of a one-off plane that almost nobody else is going to buy, as few people operate carriers, and they've already got planes. So very, very expensive, and risky if it doesn't work. Admittedly we could build say 200 of something, with a naval and RAF version - which makes the production costs realistic, and gives us something to sell as well.

Hence the decision was to get in on the F35 early, and insert BAE in there so we'd get a chunk of the work.

We could go it alone, like the French do, though the they manage it partly by being a lot less choosy about what countries they sell to than UK/US arms companies are allowed to be.

There are no simple answers here. All procurement decisions that governments make are done at least a decade before they get the new kit. Often more like 2 decades. So it's very hard to know what they need. There's also a just-in-case element, of doing work in order keep an industry going, as you might need it in 30 years - and it takes 20 years to build up again. Hence even if everyone was completely competent and decisive, you'd still get mid-project re-designs and decisions turning out to be wrong, or at least sub-optimal when the kit came to be used.

You have the right to be informed: Write to UK.gov, save El Reg

Re: Unprecedented?

It was designed as coercion. To make it look too scary for the press to refuse to set up a Leveson-compliant regulator themselves.

The press decided to take that risk, in the hope the government wouldn't dare use section 40. And also in the hope that nobody else would set up a Leveson-compliant regulator - so it couldn't come into force.

Somebody did, and got a bunch of local papers to join.

The main culprits copied and pasted their old self-regulator they've controlled before and hoped for the best.

A bunch of people in the middle decided not to join either of those, or to set up their own.

Now everyone's complaining as if this was a surprise.

Re: Mosley and Meritocracy

He's not supposed to be running Impress, he just helped to pay for it. Admittedly perhaps not from the purest of motives. But it can't be totally bollocks, as it managed to get its process approved - and a bunch of local papers to sign up - which means they're in for binding arbitration on those rules whether they like it or not.

Re: There are two sides to this argument

Iglethal,

The press are refusing to accept that the body they set up themselves can be audited and approved at arms length by a semi-independent of government body, whose members are also appointed independently, set up by royal charter to avoid it being beholden to Parliament. With the safeguard that this system requires a two-thirds vote of Parliament to change - so that governments can't have at it willy-nilly.

How much fuss would they have made if they'd been put under Ofcom? Which is far less independent of government, but I'm struggling to think of even accusations of goverrnment intereference in their TV news regulation - let alone proven cases.

This is a difficult situation, with good arguments on both sides. But the press have shown themselves unwilling to take the matter seriously for over 50 years now - over which time they've promised to do self-regulation better. And failed. Repeatedly. Eventually something was going to give. If there'd been a bit more of a spirit of cooperation, this would all have been sorted out years ago. But the press refused to have anyone marking their homework - despite chucking abuse at everyone else who's self-regulated when they screw up.

Nobody wants to see the government controlling the press, but equally the press can't be trusted to do it themselves. This was an attempt at a work-around. I'm losing patience with the press argument that it's unworkable - which all looks rather self-serving. Though I've a lot of sympathy for El Reg, stuck in the middle.

Re: At the mercy of the court

I'd have thought that it would help your case to show a judge that you'd done some serious work on joining/not joining an approved regulator. After not finding one you'd liked, you'd looked at setting another one up (obviously with others like Private Eye, the Guardian, FT, Economist etc). And that you'd put in place some systems to allow low-cost arbitration before court action as an option to any complainant. That at least shows that you've not simply ignored the problem for the last 4 years, in the hope it would go away. And that you've taken the issue seriously.

Re: I want to sign but...

IPSO is the industry's response to the widespread call for a regulator to curb excesses of The Press (phone 'hacking', making stuff up, etc.) following the Leveson report, but it's not approved so membership doesn't give a publisher the protection from the Section 40 jeopardy.

I strongly disagree. It's pretty clear that IPSO was set up to get as much of the self-regulation regime from before Leveson to stay in place as the press could get away with. The hope being that by not getting recognition, section 40 wouldn't get triggered as there was no approved alternative.

Moseley called their bluff by helping to fund Impress - which means that section 40 could be triggered - and they've been whining massively about it ever since. The solution is simple, and to get IPSO approved. I simply don't buy the objections.

Had the press ever shown an appetite to regulate themselves properly this wouldn't have happened. But they've been promising better self regulation since the 1950s, and broken their own rules, let alone what the public expected of them, ever since. Sometimes spectacularly so.

Impress were set up nearly 2 years ago now, so it's not like this is an unexpected problem.

Annoying as it is for El Reg, there are others out there in the same boat. Like the Guardian, Indy and FT - all supposedly responsible press organisations that don't fancy joining the irreconcilables at IPSO. And didn't join Impress either. They could have looked at some alternative. But seem to have decided to just hope the government would break their word on Leveson. Which, to be fair, they still might do. But it's a big risk.

https on thereg

Just had to test one other thing. Did the downvote button also work the same? Yes. All is tickety-boo for me.

I should change that downvote to an upvote, but it's funnier not to...

Yup, so far. Went to El Reg home, normal http. Clicked on the forums link, and it's been all https gravy ever since. Including preview.

Will edit to see if this is true on hitting post.

Yes, post, upvote and edit all keep the https flag flying.

As do links to article forums, not just the non-article ones.

This is on the work PC, Win 10 and Firefox. Just got out the iPad (latest Safari) and it also works the same.

I've seen no errors so far. Will have a pay with the iPad later, and see if Safari can cock things up...

OK. So preview kept me in S-land, but when I hit post I was booted back to plain http.

Also, when I re-essed myself and upvoted your post, I also went from https to http.

BTW sorry for not emailing, but I'm on the work PC - so it's a bit of a faff to use the non-work email address - and therefore a lot easier to just reply in the forum.

Edit: Amusingly hitting edit also keeps me in https land, but I assume when I submit this that I'll be booted back to the land of the insecure.

Edit 2: I was. Preview and edit keep your S status, submit and votes don't.

Otherwise I've noticed no errors. I'm in Win 10 on the latest build of Firefox. When I get home I'll have a quick play with the iPad.

OK, the https follows me round the forums. But only sometimes.

So if when I read your post, I typed the https into the address bar. Then clicked on My posts, and got there in https.

However, when I clicked on the timestamp of one of my posts, to see if I'd had a reply, I went to the article forum thread in normal http.

I then went back to my posts and https-ed myself again. Then clicked on the timestamp for my above post - to see if the User Topics forums behaved differently to the article ones. And it doesn't, I also lost my https.

When I re-ss-ed myself and went back to My posts, I then tried the long way. So clicked on User Topics, El Reg Mattters and so on - and got here all the way in https.

Preview kept me in https-land.

I'm now going to hit post and see what happens.

Have done a bit of wandering around and all seems tickety-boo so far. When I tapped in https, the pages reloaded, seemingly with all ads and sidebars intact and the same shape.

Forum pages worked, and when I upvoted someone, it also worked. With only the hiccup that I got the rude message telling me I was sending data on an insecure connection and was then back on the normal http page. Which I assume is expected behaviour?

My only concern is the very worrying fact that of all the pages I visited this morning, only one spontaneously was an https page, without me having to type it in. And that was the story on Julian Assange. Is El Reg trying to tell me something...

Florida Man sues Verizon for $72m – for letting him commit identity theft

Re: The time has come .......

So she actually got a day in court, and got three thousand for being hit by a piece of fruit.

Ah, but you have to understand this is Scotland. The poor lass wasn't traumatised by fighting, or having something heavy and sharp thrown at her. This was in Glasgow for heaven's sake.

No the trauma was caused because an innocent Scotswoman was forced to come into contact with fruit! Worse, it hadn't even been deep fried! There might even have been... vitamins!

Assange confirmed alive, tells Fox: Prez Obama 'acting like a lawyer'

Re: @Harmony A pardon?

Now what exactly did Assange do that would warrant a pardon?

This goes back to Chelsea Manning.

Part of the prosecution documents at the trial alleged that Assange didn't just take the documents but was giving Manning advice via IRC on how to get the info off the computers and to Wikileaks.

The IRC was obviously under a pseudonym, and I don't recall any info on whether they had electronic proof this was Assange, or whether it was something Manning said under questioning or agreed to.

If Wikileaks just got the data and published it, then presumably they're just being journalists and have immunity from prosecution. If, on the other hand, Assange was actively helping to get that data, then he may be at risk of prosection for hacking, or even something really nasty like espionage.

Hence the desire for a pardon. He wants assurances from European countries that they won't extradite him to the US on unspecified future charges that it would be illegal for them to give. Ministers aren't supposed to tell courts what to rule. Hence he won't get them. It may be of course that this is the reason he's asked for them, as it gives him cover for not facing the rape charge. But the US Pres can pardon someone, even for something they've not yet been charged for apparently.

Jokes of no more than 2 lines

Ah bad jokes...

I have developed an irrational fear of enclosed grottoes.

Yes, I suffer from santaclaustrophobia.

My fortnight eating Blighty's own human fart-powder

Re: If I could prepare proper meals every day I would

Good grief. The judgemental grumpy-arses seem to be out in force today.

I had a pretty cynical view of the stuff, given that my only knowledge of it was Dave Gorman taking the piss and the stories I have read about Soylent. Which as well as having an awful name, doesn't appear to have done much in the way of nutritional balancing. If this stuff is being made by properly qualified people, and they've made serious efforts to put in trace minerals and vitamins and all that good stuff (I admit I'm too lazy to check), then that's not an altogether bad thing. And if it helps someone to have make their life better, than who am I to sit on the sidelines bitching? Even if I think it's a bad idea, it's still better than not getting a balanced meal anyway because you're too knackered to cook.

I think it's more sinister than Dave Gorman's Hipster Gruel. It does mean Human Gruel, but the point is that it's not for humans, but made of them. Huel is people!

The Life and Times of Lester Haines

Re: The reminder we needed

Neil,

Good point that man! We didn't do the quid-a-day nosh posse last year and so I think we should do a Lester memorial one in 2017.

I guess we could call it the Lester Eat More to Give nosh posse? I should probably apologise for my awful pun, but stuff it. I like puns, and I'm sure he'd forgive me.

Anyway I didn't get to partake fully in the last one, as I was so busy at the time that I actually bought my week's food on the way home from work on the first day. Hence I didn't have time to email in my menu/plan. I was pleased, doing the spreadsheet afterwards, that I spent £5.08. Not bad for budgeting in my head as I went along. Anyway I'd like to do it again properly, and this time no chickpeas!

I always enjoyed Lester's articles, and I also found it particularly pleasing that he'd come and join the fun-and-games in the comments. Thus making the comments more fun, and adding to the games.

Thanks to El Reg for the great article.

How Rogue One's Imperial stormtroopers SAVED Star Wars and restored order

Re: How many Stormtroopers does it take to...?

The Empire are the baddies. Therefore their troops have to be crap, but there be loads and loads of them. It's the rules of narrative whatsit.

You only fight the elite guys at the end, once you've finished with most of the crap troops and got your rebel elite trained up to be just as good, or better. Which is why the Sardaukar don't turn up until the very end of Dune for the final showdown.

Re: It feels like Star Wars but...

Rouge One is the next film in the sequence. It's set in the Imperial Brothel, where the storm troopers are sent for their annual R&R. The Rebels infiltrate and try to break Imperial morale by planting poisoned make-up, so that all the space hookers die, and then the storm troopers will rebel agains the Emperor out of sheer sexual frustration.

My brain is now filling up with jokes about Vader and the Emperor's new force powers used to relieve their poor, sex-starved army, such as force-lightning powered vibrators or somesuch, so I'm going to stopy typing before I incriminate myself further...

Re: Critique

The guy isn't playing the Han Solo role. He doesn't do any wise-cracking, and he's far more morally ambiguous. Solo is your basic happy-go-lucky cheeky chappy, duckin' and divin', bobbin' and weavin'.

The droid is the only real source of humour in the film. And he's not playing it as slapstick, like the droids in many of the other films. He's a sarcastic bugger instead.

I think the reason for the difference is that this isn't a family film. It's not aimed at ten year olds as well as adults. We really ought to have a 12 and a 12A certificate in the UK. 12A is under 12 if accompanied, but the BBFC recomomend 8 is about the youngest you should take. 12 should mean, no under 12s. This is a war film, that's set in the Star Wars universe. So it's playing with some of the moral questions that war films tend to address. It's also got a lot less of the 5 minute sequences where you set up jeopardy, then chase/fight, escape/get saved, then tension relieving joke, that you tend to get in action films aimed at families.