Posts by Malcolm Weir 1170 publicly visible posts • joined 23 May 2007
Salesforce's "Dreamforce" event is a private event not open to the public. Is there any reason why the City & County of San Francisco should provide security for free? Also, if you _can_ hire 200 off-duty cops, that sort of suggests that there are at least 200 cops available for emergencies of any kind...
Much is made of the Taiwan/China/USA axis, where China and USA balance each other out so to let Taiwan get on with being a capitalist powerhouse.
But if the USA does become functionally unreliable, to whom will Taiwan turn?
It seems plausible that Taiwan will recognize that there is another force aligned against China, and strike a deal with India. It seems likely that Modi could strike a deal that _also_ features onshoring (with India not the USA), but on a realistic timescale and coincidentally cut the USA-India semiconductor supply chains, so that highest-tech remains in Taiwan and the medium tech gets a foothold in India.
Yes they could (and they do). But then the historical trail is lost. And that's delightful to deniers because deriving trends across anything less than decades (deniers would prefer centuries) is extremely vulnerable to challenge, which delivers (flakey) ammunition to the deniers trying to maintain the status quo ante.
The biggest mystery to me is the effort that people put into justifying pollution....
Whether or not one agrees with the argument, the idea is that EV subsidies balance things like cheap oil licenses (justified because "we all need oil for fuel") and atmospheric pollution from refineries, gas stations, vehicles and transporting volatile liquids around the place.
Also noteworthy were the murderous fools lobbying the local government to refuse or redirect federal aid to improve precautionary emergency measures (like sirens) because, and I quote, "the devil is in the Whitehouse".
As to the "too little, too late".... no. That's never going to be the case, because even e.g. reducing sea-level rise by a millimeter is better than NOT reducing it. This is the denier's favorite claim: asserting that we can't prevent climate change, so don't bother trying to reduce it.
*sigh* this is is where the anti-science evangelists like JE "triumph".
Note the claim has been subtly elided to actively acknowledge that the climate _is_ changing, but it's not our fault. They then shrilly screech that the climate has changed in the past (duh! Ice ages, anyone?) so it doesn't matter and we shouldn't do anything about it.
This denialist pattern is exactly the same as e.g. noting that thermal springs often contain high levels of geogenic arsenic, so we may as well dump toxic waste into them.
To put it another way, even if mankind is only directly (i.e.. Ignoring things like widespread deforestation) responsible for X% of the climate change, what evil turdbat would oppose reducing that X%? In mathematics: if Z is the total climate change, and X is the proportion due to anthropomorphic factors, Y being the rest, then X+Y = Z, and reducing X reduces Z, and fewer people die.
Ah, so you acknowledge that when you stated that it WASN'T Trump but NOAA that's defunding the observatory, you were misstating the facts, i.e. you were being a dingbat.
The Trumpbat instructs, others implement, who's responsible?
Ding, ding, ding!
And, poor delusion dingbat: we've established that your supreme overlord Trump doesn't do everything himself (because he's not competent, apart from anything else), so what REALLY happens is that Lutnick proposes, Trump agrees, and then Senate rubber stamps. Possibly Lutnick is "guided" by Trump's minders (Miller?) to propose an individual that's been suitably obsequious or butt-kissy, but that's a distinction with no real difference.
And no, I wouldn't be surprised about Grimm. But I'm (not really) surprised why you think the Chief of Staff of NOAA is relevant to this issue? Yes, Ms Grimm came to NOAA from WWF. But she's the ACTING head, until the Senate confirms the nominee (and you jolly cleverly outlined the process, smart boy!) and in the meantime she's just the caretaker.
The nominee is Dr Neil Jacobs, who's principal claims to fame include trying to pressure meteorologists to support the Orange Overlord's stupidity about the path of a storm (Hurricane Dorian, as it happens) and the notorious Sharpie incident, as well as other examples of dumbness (see e.g. https://blog.ucs.org/rachel-cleetus/we-watched-neil-jacobs-confirmation-hearing-for-noaa-administrator-and-are-concerned-about-what-we-heard/).
"So it's NOAA killing the MLO, not Trump"
Bloomin' 'eck!
Talk about trying to split hairs while having his cake and eating it!
What the Eel tried to wriggle out of saying is that it is TRUMP'S NOAA killing the MLO.
What dingbat thinks the any government operates by having the chief executive make _all_ the decisions personally?
In this case, Trump picked Howard Lutnick as SecCommerce for his sterling work supporting the "stolen election" lies, fundraising for Trump, and for his stupidity in agreeing that tariffs are a splendid idea. Lutnick theb picks the head of NOAA that agrees to parrot the Glorious Leader's idiocity, and never suggest that the Emperor's New Cloths might be... unusual.
I think the tin foil hat theory is substituting that commentard's lack of information with some kind of conspiracy. However, a quick google finds multiple reports of the fire starting on a deck carrying EV's, which does seem to indicate a reasonable suspicion that the origin of the fire might, you know, be an EV. And sea water doesn't have to be "sloshing inside" for for the humidity level to be elevated due, you know, to the ocean on all sides!
Still, with what we know, the fire started on an EV carrying deck and EV's have a non-zero risk of thermal runaway, particularly if you assume that fewer than 100% of vehicles are manufactured without defects!
Frankly, I'm amazed that there are so many Johnny-Come-Latelies who think the Model M is the epitome of a keyboard.
The cognoscenti know the IBM Selectric II from, I'm told, 1971 reigns supreme. The Model M was just trying to emulate that without that golfball thing....
You're not too smart, are you?
Read the article. It's quite clear that the issue described is that ICE and CBP are lawless thugs and should be first up against the wall. Nothing different today.
But even your sacred evidence makes it clear that Obama didn't ignore court orders, provides no evidence of third-country deportation or blocking due process from the judiciary.
("Immigration courts" are not judicial courts. Once the immigration court has decided, THEN the judiciary gets to weight in).
This is naive and factually incorrect: there are many more options.
But first, the idea that "if you cross the border without permission" is simplistic, as we would expect from the MAGAt fascists. One simple example is people who cross the border with permission, but for whom permission is then yanked without due process or even notice. Whether or not they are then there illegal is a legal question which may tilt either way.
The biggest dumbness here is the faux binary choice: the US has not had an "open border" in decades, if not centuries. Of course, the MAGAts like to screech that it has, but they're mostly dumb as a sack of rocks, so their errors are understandable if not admirable.
The other side of the faux binary choice comes down to the issue that the US really doesn't have a rational welfare system; sane systems make it substantially easier to manage costs, but that craps on the ability for huge corporations to skim money off the top. For the hard of thinking: Switzerland has pretty open borders with France, Germany and Italy...
(I'm not commenting on the wisdom of various policies, just pointing out the simplistic MAGAt frothing is... simplistic. Shocking!).
I don't think that's entirely true. The writers agree that the character represents the same stereotype as Trump, but the reality is that Trump fits the stereotype of a narcissistic ill-informed blowhard bully as well as Biff does. I'm sure Trump's behavior helped sculpt the character, but does Biff really hang out with a Jeffrey Epstein character the way Trump did? Did Biff bankrupt his own casino the way Trump did?
So I reckon Biff is what Trump is aspiring to be, not what he is...
Oddly enough, those who smugly claim that only those with a poor understanding of math(s) play lotteries are frequently themselves wrong:
If the odds of being the single winner are, say, 1 in 100,000,000, and the ticket price is $1, then if the jackpot is greater than $100,000,000 your expected winnings will be (jackpot) * (probability of winning) which exceeds the stake amount, so it's worth playing.
(of course, the Game Theory arithmetic is much more complicated in the real world, because of lesser prizes and greater odds, and the number of tickets sold influencing the probability of you being a single winner, and so on, but at some point the game is worth playing...)
Revenue protection is one part of the motive, but quality of service is, remarkably in this day and age, another.
Gaming in particular has value in knowing who and what the player actually is.
For example, there are scurrilous rumors that someone with the improbable name of "Elon Musk" employs minions to play games for him, so he can parachute in and look amazing to his adoring fan base. If you had to sign in using a verified ID it would be harder to masquerade as His Excellency.
But these days I'm told that bots on modern high-profile games are actually likely to be there because the game publisher wants them to be there, as NPCs rather than bots.
(For social media, of course, verified ID is a drawback. Who amongst us hasn't claimed that the toxic rant on their account wasn't the result of hacking? This is a particular problem for many high-profile people and politicians, whose accounts regularly seem to get hacked to post garbage that Absolutely Wasn't From Them).
For information (not criticism):
1. You cannot sue the President for official acts (however daft), you can only sue the US Government, which is what this is. If you try to sue in state court, the federal government will "remove" it to federal court.
2. Even if you win a lawsuit, no-one goes to jail. That requires a prosecution.
3. You cannot prosecute a sitting President; first, if the prosecution is in civil court, it will be removed to Federal court (like with point 1). And the United States (i.e. the US Department of Justice) will not prosecute a sitting President. And the Supreme Court in the case of United States vs Trump said that he's absolutely immune from prosecution for official acts, with no good definition of what constitutes an official act: theoretically, he could declare someone an enemy and order the military to murder them, and that would be OK. Yes, this is ludicrous.
4. The legal position is that the only way to deal with a lawless President is to impeach and remove him, and then a prosecution could proceed, but see last point: any prosecution would have to establish that the act for which a prosecution is being sought is outwith the bounds of a President's official actions, and there's no guidance for how to do that.
'Must "just work"' is probably wrong in the language of requirements. "SHOULD just work" is better, but when I'm "designing in" security I assume both that the operator knows the reason for the hoops I'm asking them to jump through, but also if they don't, the security maybe lessened but it's not entirely eliminated! In other words, assume the user will make mistakes and you won't go too far wrong!
Mind you, there are mistakes and there's installing a separate network interface....
P.s. I was amused to discover today that Hegseth's efforts to axe large parts of the DoD is his second attempt: back in 2015 he tried to axe part of the US Military Academy ("West Point"). Literally. With an axe. By throwing it. At a cadet. Who he hit.
They have a free daily newsletter: The Atlantic Free Daily which is quite good.
I agree that the paywall model is not ideal, but it's understandable with the whole "pay our people" thing and the reality that advertising revenue is fickle. I would love a "pay per article" mechnism, and even better if that was capped so that once you'd paid enough on the pay-per-article model you'd get the rest of the issue free (the thing costs $80 / year, i.e. $6.67 / month, so charge $1 per article with a cap of 7 articles before the rest of that month's issue at no additional charge).
Obviously, this commentator hasn't listened to Trump ramble recently....
A trivial comparison of Trump 2025 with Trump 2017 will easily spot the degeneration. The man's going to be 79 in 6 weeks, so 82 by the next election, in which he's not eligible to stand anyway because of that whole Constitution thing. Even if the Supreme Court decides he magically is, that's not the same as the states obeying the Court (which is now optional, by the way, as evidenced by Trump).
Nah, mate, it's not debatable. There are pictures showing Donold next to Musk and Vance, both of whom are apparently 6' 2". Trump is at least an inch if not two or more shorter, and is known to where lifts in his shoes. And there are many, many pictures showing him alongside others whose height is known.
Trump is also known to lie about trivial issues.
It is absolutely undeniable that Trump is not 6' 3".
Ah, in the words of, well, me, that's bollocks.
Two of the aircraft in question were in the "finishing center" in China, and have now (this weekend) been flown back to the USA. On their own. So, you know, the orders have reached the "fly across the Pacific" phase of manufacturing....
There's a third which was due to depart for Zhoushan but now will (obviously) stay in Renton. Also ready to deliver aka "flying".
Those are all the narrowbody 737 Max 8s, and make up about 30% of the Chinese orders Boeing had formerly hoped to deliver this year.
This piece of self-inflicted economic chaos is impacting aircraft at all stages of manufacturing.
Look, with the tariffs businesses will have to on-shore manufacturing, so the USA can become a self-sufficient manufacturing powerhouse "again" ("again" in the sense that although it was never really self-sufficient, but it did make a greater proportion of mid- to high-value goods).
These new manufacturing businesses will need to employ people in jobs to do the things that were previously outsourced to Asia and Central America.
Those people will come from.... errr.... hang on, there seems to be a problem with the Trumpian Brilliance!
The biggest problem with Trump from a business perspective is that Donold *likes* uncertainty and real business leaders *hate* it. Donold thinks all business is like the real estate business, and creating churn in that market can lead to great opportunities... but an awful lot of real estate transactions are just paper: company A sells a building to company B and nothing changes on the ground (until company B implements their new maintenance plan, which usually involves less maintenance and more explanations about how that's good).
There's an interesting rumor that the former governor of the bank of England is responsible for some of the recent walk-backs from Trump... allegedly he threatened to sell and coordinate a global sale of US treasury bonds. The fact that he's now the PM of Canada is integral to the allegations!
@Lewis R "In addition, it is getting hard to acquire new recording tapes, as well as drives, let alone repair parts for drives."
This is a very skewed assertion as there is no storage technology for which the "repair ancient tech" problem does not exist. I mean, try plugging in your ESDI or ST506 drives!
This comment seems a bit like saying the speed limit in the village wasn't being observed by everyone, so lets eliminate it!
The level of funding was low and yet the export controls did act as a speed bump. Yes, it didn't stop those determined to ignore it, but it slowed them down.
It's a better fist than the last lot, as you note, but Starmer is still being cringingly obsequious to the wealthy. I mean, changing the top marginal tax rate from 45% to 55% isn't going to impact the standard of living for those impacted (making more than £125,000). Or if that's too bitter pill to swallow, how about a new 55% rate for those making over £250,000?
I mean, sure, it's perhaps regrettable that any taxation is necessary, but the UK needs money to pour into important things like defense, infrastructure and the NHS.
(The inheritance tax thing on farms was cack-handed. Easy to extend an exemption to owner-operated farms, which would still close the loophole of the wealthy using farms as a tax dodge, while providing an actual incentive for family farms to remain exactly that).
Although the numbers may be in dispute (I believe there's likely some double-counting because of the way Harris received Biden's campaign funding, so a single contribution appears on both campaigns, not that the Harris numbers are relevant to Musk's purchase of the Presidency), it's laughable to claim that Musk's $288M is a "rounding error". Even using the (questionable) numbers above, it's 16%. And as you note, it might be argued that he "donated" advertising on Twitter above and beyond that.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2025
