Posts by I ain't Spartacus

EU negotiator: Crucial data adequacy deal will wait until UK hands in homework

Plus, fudge is delicious. Especially if it's packed with vanilla and butter.

But that chocolate coated banana fudge I got from a market stall in Brighton can fuck right off. It was one of the worst things I've ever eaten.

Shared, not stirred: GCHQ chief says Europe needs British spies

Re: optional comment

Almost every serious terrorist attack has been by people "known to the security services". This shows that they're doing a reasonable job - so long as they also stop some. But it's an argument for a police state, if you want to stop all attacks. And that isn't worth the price.

The point is that every time you investigate someone, you find that they have lots of contacts. You can't investigate everyone, short of having a police state. So each time, you look at those contacts and make a decision on where to prioritise your limited resources. So you try and pick the ones who are most active or threatening and move the investigation on to them.

This gives you a broad picture of a group of people who might be involved in, or on the edges of terrrorism. But most people who get involved on the fringes go no further. However, obviously some do. And unless your intel people are magic, they've going to miss some of those, and waste time investigating some who go no further. The alternative is locking people up without trial on suspicion only. Which is unacceptable. The downside of having good intel, is the bad headlines after an attack about how you should have done more. Often from the same people who criticised you for being too intrusive in your investigations in the first place...

Re: It does not matter what GCHQ think..."to leave their cozy little club"

Are you suggesting the EU should invade to try and bring the UK back in line? Well it's a thougth I suppose. And might explain why the Commission have insisted that all external EU military missionions no onger be commanded through Northwood. After all, we might notice they're planning something.

It's a thought I suppose... I mean we haven't had a war with France in ages, so I'm sure the military would be up for it. Do we fight home or away this time? And should I phone the Palace and get them to put the royal claim to the throne of France back in the job title? It was only about 1805 that we dropped it, nearly twenty years after the French had already decided (rather pointedly) that they didn't want any kings - even their own ones. Then again it was George III who gave it up, and he was mad...

Have you ever considered getting a sense of perspective?

Re: Barnier bombastic bullshit

Jason Bloomberg,

Shit analogies are still shit, however many times they're repeated. A bit like all that crap with music copyright being like cars/shoplifting/whatever.

Being in or leaving the EU, is only like being in or leaving the EU. It's a unique organisation.

I think doing it through the EU requires some proper legal supervision, rules about data-protection and legal oversight by the ECJ. And the Commission will insist on full compliance with the treaties (when it suits them). But if it becomes politically urgent to budge (say after a big terrorist attack) - they'll ignore the treaties, like they did when it came to fixing the Eurozone crisis. Or the "temporary" breaches of Schengen rules that were allowed after the Paris attacks.

Whereas doing it bilaterally means anything goes that is allowed by intelligence agencies and the anti-terrorist police. But that's less efficient. As there's no central clearing house.

On the other other hand, the most sensitive stuff probably doesn't go on EU-wide databases anyway. But only goes to the more trusted agencies.

Re: Barnier bombastic bullshit

He apparently wants the EPP to pick him as their Spitzenkandidate for Commission President in next year's European elections. And so talking tough wins him friends in the European Parliament.

But you also have to remember that there are different negotiating styles going on. Barnier and the Commission like to make lots of noise and talk tough, and ocassionally put out "leaks" of talks between May and Juncker to ramp up the media pressure. Even if they're actually closer to a deal in private. As has happened with previous rounds. To put public pressure on the UK government.

For some reason May has refused to play that game, and apart from being obviously pissed off over Galileo, the UK government has mostly just taken the hits and said nothing in public. Obviously you've got the mouthy back-bencher types shouting from the wings, but the main players haven't engaged in the same kind of tactics.

So we may be closer to deals on some of this stuff than it looks. The Commission are doing the negotiating, but the treaties place the competency with the Council of Ministers, not the Commission. So they get the final decision. So why not play good-cop bad-cop? The only part of negotiations that falls under the Commission's competency is the trade talks, and they've refused to even start those yet. So we shall see.

France wants closer security cooperation with the UK. And did before the Brexit vote, and still does. Partly because they know they can't really rely on Germany (who refused them access to transport planes during the Libya crisis for example). However France also wants to grab the UK's share of the Galileo work, so may be playing both sides, or may actually want to do that stuff bilaterally with the UK and not through the EU. Or just be trying to get two contradictory things at once? It's not like different bits of governments don't end up screwing each others' strategies up all the time or anything...

On or off the record?

Bilateral security partnerships are unlikely to change. Our intelligence agencies already work with our allies intelligence agencies. None of that is covered by treaties or EU membership and so none of that is likely to change all that much.

What will change is the formal intelligence-sharing that is done at the EU level. Which is police-y type intel stuff, more than spy stuff. Which covers organised crime and terrorism. Apparently the UK is the biggest single user of that intelligence database But also contributes more than a third of the data. But to formally stay in that, we'd have to agree to some sort of agreement on data-retention/data-sharing policies and obviously get an agreement operate in that system. To some extent we're a victim of the Commission's demand to leave all negotiation to the last minute. Rather than working on everything in parallel apparently the most important thing was to get us to agree to pay over a load of money. And that left the last year of membership to sort out everything else.

Although, on the other hand, without knowing our shared data-protection agreement, it's also hard to know what extent that's all practical. A bit like insisting on working out a solution to the Irish border problem before being willing to agree what the actual customs/trade deal is going to be. Which sort of makes it impossible to know what the answer needs to be...

On the other, other hand, this database won't be all that hard to replicate through bilateral cooperation. Particularly as we provide more intelligence than we consume.

the more important issue is probably going to be access to things like the new European (read Schengen zone) equivalent of the US ESTA electronic visa thingymajig. And also I think Theresa May would like to stay in the European Arrest Warrant system (which personally I think is almost as awful as our extradition agreement with the US) - and so that might be possible.

The article has one thing wrong though. We leave the EU next year. I know we're talking about a transition agreement lasting until 2020/21 - and maybe extending that - but that is only to cover limited areas like single market access.

So for example the Commission have decided that we're no longer allowed to lead any EU military missions, even though we've provided HQ services for all but one of them so far. Or at least we are as members, but during the transition phase no. Until a security agreement is sorted out. Which they haven't started negotiating yet. Apparently we're no longer trustworthy, despite being NATO allies and almost no other EU members having bothered to commit any HQ resources to joint EU military missions. We've also been told that our troops are allowed to join said missions, but we're to be allowed no input into decision making on said missions.

I actually suspect that a working trade deal is more likely than a security deal. And obviously the shennanigans over Gallileo have pretty much soured relations. So I suspect more stuff will go through NATO, and the EU's defence cooperation will actually become less effective without the UK, even though we've been blocking closer ties. Because the countries that call for a closer EU security relationship tend to be the same ones that then won't spend any money on defence.

Cryptography is the Bombe: Britain's Enigma-cracker on display in new home

Raspberry and chocolate?

UK footie fans furious as Sky Broadband goes TITSUP: Total inability to stream unfair penalties

Re: Er. just Sky ?

Perhaps the video referees were on Sky broadband - and that's how they failed to get through to the ref to tell him that he'd missed not one, but two England penalties?

Re: BT was fine all weekend

I don't think they'll be able to move the satellite. I should try and see if you can pay SpaceX enough to gently nudge it into a more convenient orbit?

Re: Ah, Sky logic

Presumably the same way you're able to tweet your supposed lack of internet connectivity...

I don't believe you listened on the Light Programme. Radio 5 is a newfangled operation, but I believe got its mediumwave frequencies from Radio 4. Therefore you were in fact listening to the commentary on the Home Service.

Here is the News. And this is John Snagge reading it...

Re: UHD

Did UHD allow you to do a proper count of the midges?

Unbreakable smart lock devastated to discover screwdrivers exist

Re: DA security systems

Guard leopards optional...

User spent 20 minutes trying to move mouse cursor, without success

Re: Purchasing tractor parts last week.

I've always liked the acronym POS. Given that I've seen several point-of-sale systems, and read about a few more, and without exception every single one was indeed a complet pile o' shite.

ICANN pays to push Whois case to European Court of Justice

They can sell .amazon to Amazon, and ignore the government committee. Then decide to "auction" .google, microsoft .apple and .coke - forcing those companies to buy their own domains. Although it would be funny if one of the drug cartels outbit CocaCola for .coke.

Maybe get a bidding war going between Bitcoin miners and druggies for .hash as well...

In reality though it's easy. They just hike the prices for the registrars, and get them passed on to the customers. This has worked very well for Nominet, for example. And because of the generally pisspoor governance models in place in this area, there's nothing "stakeholders" can do. Unless they finally rise up and hammer those stakes through the hearts of the "non-profits" in question, and get them run by better people.

Astroboffins 'sprinkle iron filings' over remnant supernova

Re: Not too shabby indeed

No. He was warning his voice assitant that there was a flight of ducks in the way, that might get sucked into the engines of his flying car. That's what's delayed it. As soon as the computer's charged the capacitor circuits of the traffic-control-laser, he'll have both crispy ducks and his flying car. Just in time to fly to the supermarket to pick up pancakes and hoisin sauce...

Dixons Carphone 'fesses to mega-breach: Probes 'attempt to compromise' 5.9m payment cards

I'll happily pay $1,000 for an HDMI cable. So long as it carries the signal, cooks my dinner and makes the tea, while I'm watching telly.

Otherwise the only use it would get is to stangle the person that tries to sell it to me.

Especially if it's a communication from PC World!

Did you see that scam advert for gold plated HDMI cables at £100, that give you a better picture. Who'd believe that shit? Oh hang on, that was genuine wasn't it. I overheard the guy in the shop selling the damned things.

Budget Surface 'spotted' in Microsoft's crystal ball

Re: RT reborn?

I hadn't realised that the stylus now works on the basic iPad. However it's nothing like what Microsoft offer, as you can't actually write with it. Or maybe Apple will deign to allow you to use the notes app, I'm not quite sure, but you can't use it to write an email or fill in a form online. Presumably because Steve Jobs once said that stylii were rubbish, and so Apple can't bring themselves to sell one, so they call it a pencil and only really let you draw with it. Very odd that - as my old HP convertible tablet in 2007 did really good handwriting recognition.

Korean cryptocoin exchange $30m lighter after hacking attack

DuncanLarge,

If you find a pile of valid Deutschmarks you can probably take them to the German central bank and have them turned into Euros at the fixed exchange rate at which Germany joined. If not now, you were able to do so for several years after the Euro came in. There is usually a transition period with fiat currencies, when changes happen. It's rare that a fiat currency has disappeared completely. Those countries that are seen to have strong institutions lend that confidence to their currencies. And of course, if their people have to pay tax in it, then it has a value. Hyper-inflation is a sign of a collapse in that institutional framework - and can be reversed very quickly by a government that is believed to be doing something about it.

In fact your example of Obama sort of proves the point. Actually you're wrong in that QE isn't the same as money-printing. But even so, the US had a small amount of inflation, and everything pretty much carried on as normal. There was continuing faith in the national institutions, and the dollar pretty much maintained its value. A few people got very over-excited and yet I don't think inflation went much above 4%.

In your examples of civilisational collapse, gold may have little more value than fiat currency. Who'd give you food for useless gold, when they're starving? You'd be much better off with barter. Whereas good honest paper can be used to start fires. If civilisation collapses, everything goes out the window and you can't plan for it. For all other forseeable situations, your dollars will probably be fine. Bitcoins could lose all their value tomorrow, or by the end of the year, or might be useful for decades / centuries. But they don't have any institutions to support them, and also nobody is forced to take them off you to pay their taxes. So crypto-currency is the digital equivalent of bank scrip from the 19th Century. Except without even the rickety 19th C bank to back it.

Re: Success of fiat

\MonkeyCee,

I don't think you understand this money thing correctly. Not that it isn't hideously complicated There's been a lot of nonsense talked about it since the great recession. For example, when I see the phrase "private central banks" that seems to be a warning sign that someone has taken on board too much of this stuff. Central Banks aren't private. They're owned/controlled by the government. The Bank of England started that way, and the US Fed is technically owned by its member banks, but as they're not allowed to sell those shares or choose who's in charge, or set the targets, it's basically a legal fiction of ownership.

Government debt and fiat currency aren't the same thing at all. Though many definitions of money do include government debt, along with bank deposits and various securities (depending on where on the scale you are from M0-M6). Your example of tally sticks, which were markers of debts owed by the monarch/treasury. Those were not a currency, though could be counted in some definitions of money. The currency was the coinage. A few English kings defaulted on their debts (or imprisoned their lenders), but what affected the value of the currency was kings like Henry VIII who massively debased the coinage.

Once you're on the fiat tiger the only way to get off is to default, which can be made rather difficult depending who your bonds have been sold too (see Argentina).

Again, you've misunderstood this. There is no fiat tiger. Fiat money is just a way of keeping score. Obama didn't print trillions of dollars, the Fed did QE. And not because Obama told them to, but because Ben Bernanke happened to be one of the foremost academic experts on the 1930s Depression - and that was his proposed solution. It had the benefit of having worked in Japan in the 1930s, so had been tested once. QE is not money printing. It might look the same, but it isn't, because it's designed to be reversed.

Argentina defaulted because their currency had already devalued, and they'd borrowed in dollars. So now they couldn't meet the interest payments. People didn't lose confidence in the Peso after the default. Once they couldn't maintain the fixed exchange rate, government default became inevitable. But the currency didn't devalue further after default, in fact it slowly increased against the dollar. This is because Argentina had an export boom in soya, and other agricultural products, and were no longer having to buy much foreign currency to service their debts. Meanwhile, at home people continued to use the Peso, and everything was fine - despite it having just been the biggest default in history. It was only the next government that then started to print money, break the independence of their Central Bank, and falsify the inflation reports. Which caused the huge inflation they're now dealing with, and did undermine confidence in the Peso.

Had Argentina not borrowed in dollars, but in Pesos, they'd not have had the same crisis. Firstly the government wouldn't have been able to borrow so much - they borrowed a lot under US law, because investors knew they couldn't default on it, or manipulate the courts. But also, when they went off the exchange rate peg to the dollar, their government debt would have devalued along with the currency (at least to foreigners). To everyone in the Peso economy, it would maintain the same value. Once you use a free floating currency, the feedback loop between government creditworthiness and exchange rate is mostly broken - and the exchange rate will be set by flows of money for trade and investment.

Similarly the Weimar hyper-inflation was because the government was printing money to service its huge foreign debt. What gave confidence in the currency again, was because they partially defaulted on that debt. And stopped printing money, sending so much money abroad and re-valued the currency. So no, a default need not affect faith in the currency itself.

Finally, you keep making a distinction between fiat currency and FLAT currency. Is there a language issue here? I've never heard of FLAT currency before, and quick Google gives me no clues either. It's 25 years since I studied economics, so is there some new terminology I'm missing? Is it a term common in crypto-currency circles?

Re: Success of fiat

MonkeyCee,

Fiat currency and government debt are not the same thing. Many governments have defaulted on their debts, but their currency has survived perfectly fine. The people who lose out when someone defaults would lost out whatever currency that debt was denominated in. Though a loss of confidence in the government can be more serious.

Countries tend to keep their currencies. And even when they (country or currency) collapse, often create new ones and allow people to bring their existing holdings across (sadly often at a loss).

But a fiat currency will basically work so long as enough people believe in the continuation of enough of the institutions and economy of the country that uses it. It might not work perfectly, you might get inflation and deflation and exchange-rate fluctuations. But people will still continue to use it as a means of exchange and a store of value. It's only when trust completely breaks down, as it did in Zimbabwe, and looks like it has/will in Venezuala.

Even in Weimar Germany, the period of hyper-inflation only lasted a couple of years. And that's the most famous example of wheelbarrows full of cash that couldn't buy a sack of potatoes. By 1924-5, they'd got inflation under control again. It wasn't inflation that lead to the rise of Hitler, it was the unemployment and deflation after the 1929 crash that brought Hitler to power. A lesson often forgotten.

It's the deflation in Southern Europe (and consequent unemployment) that will bring down the Euro, if they don't sort their shit out pretty quickly. At minimum with a proper banking union and some sort of system to deal with government debt crises, though to make it work properly requires fiscal transfers.

Fiat currency came along, and despite many failures has supplanted all comomodity-backed ones.

Fiat currencies have also failed. But so have commodity-based ones. Spain found loads of silver in South America. Hooray we're rich! Oh shit, we have inflation, we're no longer rich. Help! The gold standard went wrong more than fiat currencies did. Which is why not only is it no longer used, but almost nobody serious suggests going back to it. Maybe we'll find something better in future, I'm no believer in "the end of history", but so far we haven't.

Crypto currency is just fiat money with nobody in control. OK, in Zimbabwe that control was a bad thing. But the Eurozone was saved by it. The disorderly collapse of that could cause a 1930s style global depression - governments do have their uses. Even if it was the bloody governments that created that particular disaster-waiting-to-happen themselves.

I don't know why you complain about seigniorage though. Sure the US government makes a bit of money from printing dollars. But it's not all that much, and that profit goes to the US taxpayer in government spending or lower taxes. What's your problem? All currency issuers get that benefit. The more they're trusted, the more they get. With the gold standard, that value goes to the gold miners. With Bitcoin it went to the original creators and the miners. The difference being, they didn't share it with anyone. I don't really see it as a relevant point.

Re: I'm forever blowing bitcoin

handleoclast,

The Labour Theory of Value isn't mainstream economics. I think that's from Marx, if I remember correctly.

But you're obviously right that nothing has a fixed value. However nothing's absolute. A £5 is worth nothing if confidence in the UK currency collapses. But that's not happened in a very long time, which of course boosts confidence. But you can destroy a currency, as Zimbabwe did, and Venezuala are doing. So currencies are based on everyone agreeing they're worth something, which remains true until it doesn't - often quite suddenly.

An apple though has a use. Until it goes off. As does steel or gold. You can argue what their value is, but they have an intrinsic worth of something. As do Bounty bars you heathen! Although in my case the dark chocolate ones, I'm not really bothered by the others.

RobertLongshaft,

Fiat currencies are backed by governents and the whole economy that uses them. Which is why they've been so successful throughout history. But even some of those fail. Bitcoin is truly backed by nothing but faith When faith wobbles, governments can try to step in to save their currencies (see the Euro for a recent example) - there is nobody to save Bitcoin.

Bitcoin's also a bubble. Because people are backing it as an investment, but there's no possible return but other investors. And that very process has destroyed its use as a currency, as transaction costs are now so ludicrous.

But bubbles pop when they're ready to. This is what makes them so dangerous. The people that see it, get told they've been "proved wrong" and so ignored. Until they're finally proved right later. I think it was UBS that sacked their CEO partly for refusing to buy all those nice mortgage backed CDOs in the last decade - and thus forgoing juicy profits. Did they apologise and re-hire him in 2008 after he was proved right?

To quote John Maynard Keynes, "the market can stay irrational for longer than you can stay solvent."

Re: It's the standard planned Exit Strategy

Or even if it's not planned, it's such an obvious move to make. You've got large amounts of a hard to trace commodity with value. You're not regulated or audited terribly well, and they tend to be quite small organisations So if profits collapse, or something goes wrong, or even if there's a genuine small hack that's going to destroy confidence in your company, what do you do? Well you could just shut-up shop. But the temptation is going to be there, to make off with the stock and say "a big boy did it and ran away."

That was what happened to all the banks when I played EVE Online. Even the honest ones. They got the admin wrong, screwed up, or just got bored. Then as often as not, took the rest of the money and ran. Something EVE encouraged of course...

Re: Insurance?

A properly regulated exchange would have to have some of its own assets to cover such losses, as well as insurance and proper security. But this is Bitcoin, so there isn't any proper regulation.

But then opposing regulation (and taxes) is what many Bitcoin users want.

Whereas in regulated financial markets, when someone gets past the security you'd have a good chance to track the stolen money / stocks / bonds. And of course a lot of the work isn't done on the open internet, which surely makes security a bit easier.

Re: Speculative bubble bursts, economy fine

Also, if you're hacking an exchange to steal its Bitcoins, why would you want to reduce their value further by shorting the currency?

It'll be interesting to see if the SEC find anything in their probe on Bitcoin price-fixing. Which is much more likely to be people trying to drive the price up. Not something that's hard to do, given how small trading volumes are. Low trading volumes being the reason prices are so volatile anyway...

Although, there is now a way to effectively short Bitcoin. Since you can now trade Bitcoin futures on CME, which is a proper exchange dealing with a large chunk of the global futures market.

Devuan ships second stable cut of its systemd-free Linux

Doctor Syntax,

I salute you for the phrase fashionably fugly.

I think that's one I'll have to steal. How many times have I been on a website that's clearly been taken over by the marketing and is now so covered in widgets, menus, moving pictures and general clutter? Often with some eye gouging catching background colour, like flourescent purple.

Re: Storm in a teacup

KarelE,

I don't use Linux, though I've played around with it a little bit. So I'm just a watcher from the outside. You're right that Systemd is here, but I don't think the community shows much sign of getting over it. At least not soon. Maybe it'll win over the doubters, improve and become standard everywhere in a few years time. But on the other hand, maybe those in charge of it will fuck up once too often, or manage to piss off too many distros, so that it loses critical mass and fails. The latter looks as (or more) likely than the first to me - because the arrogance and arseholery on continuous display from Poettering is likely to have consequences every so often.

wolfetone,

Don't sit on the fence. What do you really think about SystemD?

You love it really don't you?

#CheckYourBloodPressure

#SorryCouldn'tResist

The hits keep coming for Facebook: Web giant made 14m people's private posts public

Re: One has to wonder..

As the Royal Navy toast goes, "To Wives and Sweethearts!"

_{"May they never meet."}

Britain's new F-35s arrive in UK as US.gov auditor sounds reliability warning klaxon

Re: What will happen during a war?

Why does Scotland need nukes? Or to ruin perfectly good haggis.

They have bagpipes. What other weapon could they need? 50 pipers, all with pipes deliberately detuned, could bring London to its knees in a few hours.

Re: Silent But Deadly

Even the SAS under full baked bean propulsion can't achieve Mach 1. Plus, isn't that chemical warfare?

Re: News to us in the U.S.

No, it's on time and within budget since the last time we "updated" the budget and schedule.

Maybe it'll even meet these new targets. If not, we can always make some more...

Re: They can do some amazing things

Isn't this what happens witih most military systems though? Especially the complex ones.

The only question is, does enough money get invested in fixing them once they're taken into service. Which given the huge numbers of these being bought, is pretty likely.

The original Lightning was great for example. But was shit for serviceability, because you pretty much needed to take an engine out to get to anything else inside the airframe. Meaning that 15 minute maintenance jobs took 10 hours.

Re: Er, what?

Ever heard of ISIS and Al Qaeda? I'm sure they've been in the news the odd time or two...

As it turns out, the times we've allowed them to hold territory, they've recruited and trained large numbers of people for terrorist attacks back in Europe. Hence making the calculation that allowing them to hold territory might be a worse idea than the alternative of using military force to stop them.

You may think that calculation is wrong, but you can't call it irrational.

Re: I thought economy class was bad

I believe they've got decent autopilots - though that still leaves them having to do mid-air refueling and land the thing. But I don't see why they couldn't hide a G&T or two in the packed lunch?

Re: Reliability?

Although Martin Withers should also have turned back. Given that his window malfunctioned, and they had to jam it closed with a sandwich wrapper in flight.

Good job they packed a lunch!

Aren't Turkey only doing engine maintenance? So you just crate the engines up and ship them there. Fly if you're in a rush. You tend to have more engines than combat aircraft anyway. Because maintenance.

Re: What will happen during a war?

I see the armchair generals and strategists are out in force.

What use is F35 you ask? Who knows. It's impossible to know. We ordered some of the things about 5 years ago, having been putting money into the project for another 5-10 years before that, and we're not getting all the planes we ordered for another 5-10 years. Once we've got them, we may well buy more, when the price has come down a bit. Or not.

But the important point is that we'll be operating the things until 2040-2060. What will be the global security environment in 20-40 years time? Anyone? Anyone?

However at the moment we're using the RAF to fight ISIS, plus we've recently used it in Libya. And there's now a considerable body of thought that says we should have used it against Syria's chemical weapons capability in 2013 (where stealth might actually have been useful), though opinions differ obviously.

But the other big job the RAF are currently doing is patrolling the skies over the Baltic States. Because we're treaty-bound to defend them via NATO. But it's considered better to have forces in place to deter Russia, than to try to retake the places after they've fallen.

I don't think anyone is currently suggesting there's any threat to the UK itself. Other than from France of course. We've got to be prepared to fight off the Frogs...

But the point is Russia currently have form in invading their neighbours in order to "protect" Russian minorities left over from Soviet days. And that population is a running sore in Baltic States politicsj - particularly the older generation who only speak Russian and have a bit of nostalgia for the "good old days". So if we're going to have those countries in NATO we need a credible force in place,so Russia can't just conquer them in a day. Because if they have to mobilise sufficient force to do it, we've got time to react and reinforce ourselves.

But also the Russians know they've got to kill lots of British, US, German servicement to do it. Which then means other NATO governments have no excuse to just shrug their shoulders, up sanctions a bit and do the old Yes Minister "there's nothing we can do" bit.

The nuclear threat isn't credible if you're going from a standing start to WWIII. And realistically we're not going to re-invade somewhere on Russia's border once lost. The so the answer is credible military force in place (while not being big enough to actually threaten Russia), with reinforcement possible, backed by the nuclear deterrent.

Of course we could just have stuck with our old planes, but Tornado is getting old. And also, while you can fly old planes, and then buy new off-the-shelf ones to meet a threat quite quickly. Maybe 2 or 3 years to retrain pilots and start getting the new ones (even quicker if you buy second-hand like Canada buying old Aussie F18s). You can't do that with a carrier capability. Which as a trading nation on an island that imports food, oil and goods - is something quite useful. As well as for power projection.

To get a carrier designed and built and takes years. You've then got to train a crew to run it safely. Then train the pilots and buy the planes. Even in a rush and buying off-the-shelf designs you'd struggle to get an operational carrier within a decade. That's why the Russians had so much trouble with sending theirs to Syria - because even not regularly using it means you can't operate it properly. Carrier ops are hard. Complex, dangerous and expensive.

Japanese fashion puts the oo-er into trousers

Re: But where's the technology angle?

My friend's Dad worked for Wang in the 80s. So he was always getting promotional t-shirts and baseball caps, which he couldn't wear, because we'd all snigger at him.

Re: Do it right (maybe NSFW)

I believe that Henry VIII did it even more properly. See this pic from the Tower of London.

US govt mulls snatching back full control of the internet's domain name and IP address admin

Re: Yay choices

Option 10 - Hand over control to a consortium of Facebook, Google, Oracle and FIFA.

Then after a few years days, we'll all be singing the praises of ICANN, and trying to get it handed back to them. As all options seem to be bad, this will at least make ICANN seem less awful in future. As well as doing wonders for the sales of popcorn.

Could we not deal with the ICANN personnel issues quite easily. Simply nail all the doors and windows of their building shut, during an all-employees meeting. Or seed their carpark with landmines. Or both.

I'm sure the system would bimble along nicely without them, and nobody would notice their absence for years.

No lie-in this morning? Thank the Moon's gravitational pull

Re: Uh huh...

25 hours isn't enough. I think my ideal day would be to get up at 7am, go to bed at 2am and still get about 7 hours of sleep. So I'd personally prefer a 26 hour day.

The problem is that by the time the Earth / Moon system achieves that happy state, I'll probably be so old that I'm dozing in the armchair all day in front of Cash in the Attic and then only getting 3 hours sleep a night.

But surely getting into bed couteracts this effect? So as long as you equalise the number of times you climb into and out of bed in your lifetime, everything should be fine.

This also applies to the number of times you fall on the floor while drunk. Again there shouldn't be a problem equalising this with the number of times you get up again, but I think that means you need to stand up, and not just crawl into bed, after hitting the floor.

Re: Sounds like a fairly volatile place to be at the time..

Erosion.

Wrong.

The sea is salty because the Flying Spaghetti Monster used them to boil his pasta, back when the earth was still hot enough to do that. He (she/it) then used the Moon as a collander to strain the pasta, which is why the moon has all those craters and holes in it. Which have since been occupied by Clangers of course.

History does not record what sauce the great FSM had with this pasta. But I'm sure it would be a boon to any potential space exploration if we could find a carbonara planet.

UK's first transatlantic F-35 delivery flight delayed by weather

Good point. I'd forgotten about those, USS Akron and USS Macon.

However I'm not sure if the F35 could fly slowly enough to be able to dock with them. I guess that's another argument for having kept Harrier. I saw some old test footage the other day of a pilot hovering his Harrier and letting a crane hook onto the top, then turning his engines off. I think they were doing silly experiments on whether they could launch Harriers from ships much smaller than aircraft carriers. Not sure I fancy trying to catch a moving plane with a hook on a long line from a crane on a moving ship though...

Re: "It won't"

Milton,

It's a long old rant. And fair enough to have a go at Canada's procurement, since they seem to have been in and out of the F35 program as if they're doing the hokey-cokey...

But why are you complaining about F35Bs and the lift fan? As far as I understand it, Canada were planning to buy the F35A (normal airforce version) but with a modification by borrowing the refueling system from the F35C (US carrier version). Or something. They were never involved in the VSTOL 'B' version, so far as I know.

And now may not be involved in any version. Having bought some old Australian F18s to tide them over as their old ones slowly fail while they have another go at making the decision. So Canada may go for F35A, or something else. Who can tell?