* Posts by Potemkine

790 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Jan 2011

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Frack me! UK shale gas bonanza 'bigger than North Sea oil'

Potemkine Silver badge

Re: Hippies?

You're right, let's trust corporations, they never lie when it is about safety.

"Another 2011 study identified 632 chemicals used in natural gas operations. Only 353 of these are well-described in the scientific literature; and of these, more than 75% could affect skin, eyes, respiratory and gastrointestinal systems; roughly 40-50% could affect the brain and nervous, immune and cardiovascular systems and the kidneys; 37% could affect the endocrine system; and 25% were carcinogens and mutagens. The study indicated possible long-term health effects that might not appear immediately."

Potemkine Silver badge
Mushroom

List of additives for hydraulic fracturing

Cf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_additives_for_hydraulic_fracturing.

Doesn't it sound like a good idea to massively inject these products into our soils? It won't have any effect for sure, no problemo, let's go! There's money to make!

"The 2011 US House of Representatives investigative report on the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing states that out of 2,500 hydraulic fracturing products, "more than 650 of these products contained chemicals that are known or possible human carcinogens, regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act, or listed as hazardous air pollutants". The report also shows that between 2005 and 2009, 279 products had at least one component listed as "proprietary" or "trade secret" on their Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) required material safety data sheet (MSDS). The MSDS is a list of chemical components in the products of chemical manufacturers, and according to OSHA, a manufacturer may withhold information designated as "proprietary" from this sheet. When asked to reveal the proprietary components, most companies participating in the investigation were unable to do so, leading the committee to surmise these "companies are injecting fluids containing unknown chemicals about which they may have limited understanding of the potential risks posed to human health and the environment"

Isn't that wonderful?

Schmidt 'very proud' of Google's tiny tax bill: 'It's called capitalism'

Potemkine Silver badge

Re: Can see

Nice rant I agree with, however 'we' are the real culprits, we elect those politicians, we have the leaders we deserve.

Potemkine Silver badge
Mushroom

Schmidt is right

Everybody knows that Greed is the basis of capitalism, "morality" is a concept invented by crypto-communists to thwart business.

Google still doesn't do evil, followers of the Golden Calf just don't have the same definition for that word. If you know that "paying tax = evil", then everything is right again!

Google's ethics, cosy UK.gov chats under Westminster scrutiny

Potemkine Silver badge
Mushroom

No kidding...

"The music industry had been able to tolerate private copying without compensation "

In France we pay a lot the music industry to have the right of private copy. We pay taxes on quite everything able to store data, except internal HDs, for an amount around 200 millions € per year. And we are not the only ones, see "Private copying levy"' on wikipedia.

The music industry is a greedy one, exploiting artists and consumers, whining to keep its undue privilege. Let's nuke it and build something new.

Ten technology FAILS

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The eleventh one

Caps Lock USAGE at El REG.

Web users: We've got NO IDEA if we're stealing content or not

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"That's like military intelligence"

You mean, contradiction in terms?

Sacre Bleu! US fingered for Flame attack on Élysée Palace

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What?! Emails are not confidential?

No kidding....

Allies spying on allies? Not really surprising, but as the article says, "to make the mistake of being caught doing it is another matter."...

Anyway, it's a good thing to be rid of Sarkozy, he was pitiful on all accounts... what else could we expect from a business lawyer? If everything goes normal, we should see starting tomorrow if he is such a good lawyer in front of a judge, see http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/nov/19/nicolas-sarkozy-judge-party-donations

PS: "Sacre Bleu" -> "Sacrebleu"

Files aren’t property, says US government

Potemkine Silver badge

Good news, everyone!

Yep, said with *that* voice.

France again threatens Google with link tax

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FAIL

and your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries

Press corporations are good to lobby, very good indeed, being the relay of politicians who need the press. Note also that in France there are many occurrences of couples made of a journalist with a statesman, starting by the President himself. Collusion between media and politicians is IMHO a problem in our democracy.

Anyway, this idea of taxing Google for this is an aberration, won't work and will be probably declared as unconstitutional by the "Conseil Constitutionnel", in charge of ensuring that laws respect the Constitution. Moreover, the press needs Google, when the opposite is not true. This tax proposal will fail.

Big labels try for ISP blocking on 3 more 'pirate' sites

Potemkine Silver badge

The truth is...

... they know that.

What they want is to keep the control on distribution and avoid that people find music by themselves, so it is still easy to feed them with the very profitable subsh*tty products made by a computer and a sound engineer in two days they call "music" .

EARTH was a BAKING LIFELESS DESERT for 5 MILLION years

Potemkine Silver badge

Netiquette 101

"Another rule is to avoid typing in ALL CAPS or grossly enlarging script for emphasis, which is considered to be the equivalent of shouting or yelling."

Microsoft plans big licencing price hikes, shifting to per-Device model

Potemkine Silver badge

Re: The Price of FOSS...

So you will have to rewrite a lot of code that was already working, pay a lot for that, and have to deal with all the new bugs and caveats of the rewritten pieces of code. "Rewriting everything from scratch" is what IT routinely suggests, but Accounting generally doesn't agree. How can you be sure the switching process from MS to Open Source will guarantee you having the same functionalities than before and will be profitable in term of cost?

Twitter censors bow to police, suppress Nazi tweets

Potemkine Silver badge

Re: But, to be fair...

Who decides what is offensive or not? The parliament, elected by and representing the Nation.

Any country limits speech: you cannot call to murder someone for instance, it's illegal even in the US - google for "Student Convicted of Threatening to Kill President Bush, Faces Up to 35 Years in Prison" for instance.

Potemkine Silver badge

"First they came for the national socialists"

So sad 'they' didn't do the same in 1933, it could have avoid us a world war, 60 million dead and a continent in shatters.

Let's learn that from History: appeasement does not work with Nazis.

Tibetan STATUE found by 1930s NAZI expedition is of ALIEN ORIGIN

Potemkine Silver badge
Megaphone

Does it deserve yelling it?

If they also found a keyboard without caps lock, it could be useful to the author of this article :yawn:

Want to avoid another cookie law mess? Talk to EU bods next time

Potemkine Silver badge
Holmes

Re: But..

" When most other EU countries are told to do something that they don't want to do, they simply don't do it and there never seems to be any sanction against them"

Never heard about the European Court of Justice, didn't you? Try "the european court of justice condemned " on your favorite search engine, it will give you a hint...

Facebook co-founder Moskovitz scrambles to offload his shares

Potemkine Silver badge

The bubble is close to explode

The biggest negative point with the in-a-close-future-moribund FB (Hurray!) is that it was able to convince people their privacy didn't matter, and that it was legitimate that someone else makes business with their private parts... euh data.

Arctic ice shrinks to ‘smallest in satellite era’ - NASA

Potemkine Silver badge

Re: It is all irrelevant.

Or not.

If Earth goes the way of Venus or Mars, I doubt human kind will be able to adapt.

Hacktivists lift emails, passwords from oil biz in support of Greenpeace

Potemkine Silver badge

Die, hippie, die!

You know, I had a guy in Jackson county. He had a little drum circle in his backyard. It turned into a drum circle four miles in diameter. You get a few hippies playing drums and next thing you know, you got yourself a colony.

Yes, you can be sacked for making dodgy Facebook posts

Potemkine Silver badge

Not in the US only

In 2010, three engineers from Alten were fired for a similar reason, see http://www.english.rfi.fr/france/20101120-three-fired-facebook-criticisms-bosses. They argued their comments were private, but the judge said they were made in a public space, so having them fired was justified, there is an obligation of loyalty towards your employer.

Metro, that ribbon, shared mailboxes: Has Microsoft lost the plot?

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Suicidal tendencies

When we wanted to externalize our Exchange server which was costing us a lot of time to make it run smoothly, especially with the BES server for the Blackberry fleet, we had a look to Sharepoint. To make it work we would have had to update all the Office installations we had from Office 2003 to Office 2007+, a cost unjustified for a SME like ours. So instead of Sharepoint we switched to a solution five times less expensive and which didn't need to buy for 20K€+ of software: Google Apps. We use it for one year now and everybody is very happy with it, it offers a lot of functionality for everyone. It also let people use whatever mail interface they want: Outlook, Thunderbird or the web-based interface (often through Iron, a good alternative to Chrome). Now people know they can do without Outlook, and for some even without Office, Google Apps providing enough tools for many. Thanks to its idiotic policy, MS threw ourselves into the arms of Google - Side effect, we don't use Blackberry anymore, but Iphone or android devices, now people can make their choice, and they are very happy with it. Freedom to the people! :-)

Study: Climate was hotter in Roman, medieval times than now

Potemkine Silver badge

A possible answer

Nowadays there are wine producers in Norway, google for "Côte de Rodeløkka”... it's a little bit northern to the Orkney Islands. So, following your logic, this should be a clear indicator that today's climate is warmer than in roman time, shouldn't it?

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Thumb Down

local != global

Nowhere in the article is it mentioned that the study is related to northern Scandinavia and not the entire world. It's misleading and deceptive.

And about roman wines, I doubt anyone would like to drink them today, they were bitter and were more like vinegar.

Ex-France Telecom CEO probed over staff suicide spate

Potemkine Silver badge

Re: Fonctionnaires...

BS and rightist propaganda - I know many people in the private sector who don't make half the job of a civil servant. It isn't a matter of public or private, it's a matter of size (as often) - The bigger the organization, the bigger the number of slackers in it.

Facebook phone app attempts to seize ALL YOUR MAIL

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Facebook suicide

I love the smell of napalm in the morning...

Apple CEO defends fixes to suppliers' working conditions

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Flame

Bastards united

Apple makes a lot of money from the exploitation of Asian workers. It is not the only one, but it's no excuse.

But in the end, the one who is responsible of all the sufferings endured by Asian workers (see the article of the NY times, "In China, Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad") is the buyer of iPhone or iPad or whatever electronic product made in Asian, who doesn't give a fuck about the Asian worker as long as the buyer can selfishly enjoy the product. We don't care if their working conditions are atrocious, if they suffer, if they die because of exposure to toxic substances, as long as we can have the shiny new iPhone we can brag with.

NASA finds first Earth-sized planets outside the solar system

Potemkine Silver badge

Two new class-J planets located on the map. Good job!

FCC (finally) cracks down on BLARING! TV! ADS!

Potemkine Silver badge

"Republican Congressman Joe Barton of Texas rose to speak in opposition, providing an example of his party's antipathy to government regulation" - Or rather is party's simpathy towards companies at the expense of citizens. Rather protecting business interests than citizens' health, eh, who pay the most?

What we call western democracies are in fact oligarchies, "societies in which wealth is the criterion of merit and the wealthy are in control". 'We, the people' was a dream, now it's a joke.

JP Morgan has a Playmobil moment

Potemkine Silver badge

Isn't something missing there?

For instance what is the origin of the crisis? Ok, I guess it's better for JP Morgan not to mention the subprimes scam anymore, and the roles of banks and the financial sector at large in the economic disaster the World is experiencing. We are here to pay for them, not to expect them to be accountable, aren't they?

Anyway, another weird point is why is the EU debt crisis so serious when the ratio debt over GDP of the eurozone is still 20 points below the ratio of the US, for instance?

For UK, AFAIK the ratio is 150%. Who is gonna pay?

Satellite gives better picture of solar flares' effects on Earth

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Obscurantism

Global warming is not a belief, it's a fact, google for NASA's GISTEMP.

UK's first Stealth fighter in successful catapult test

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"UK's first Stealth fighter in successful catapult test"

UK's? Isn't the little nose drawing a white star? Unless UK is now _officially_ the 51st state of the Union? Let's be realitic, UK hasn't the means anymore to build its own fighters, the great Air Industries UK was legitimaly so proud in the past (Hawker, Vickers, De Havilland...) are now just souvenirs...

NASA's nuclear Mars tank arrives at launch site

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Again

I like the way the carrier is thrown away like a garbage that will lies for decades, centuries or more on the martian soil. We start space exploration the human way, by thrashing everything we touch.

RAF Eurofighters make devastating attack – on Parliament

Potemkine Silver badge

A slight precision

> Rafale has blown up Libyan tanks, so has Typhoon; Rafale has flown counter-air without engaging any Libyan jets yet, and same for Typhoon.

To be precise, it's more "one static, abandoned tank" in case of Typhoon, 'tanks and artillery and command centers and ammunition stockpiles everyday" for the Rafale - Oh, and for air superiority, the only Lybian jet shot down was by a Rafale...

So, nice try, little Troll, so sad your fantasy doesn't match the facts

Potemkine Silver badge

No kidding

> What you seem to be doing is comparing them to fighter jets no one outside of America will ever get their hands on and another that we’ll be flying ourselves in a few years.

ROTLF.

Two tests between Rafale and Typhoon were made: Solenzara in 2007 and UAE in 2009. the scores are clear:

Solenzara 2007 – Rafale won vs Eurofighter – 8-1 – dogifight

UAE atlc December 2009 - Rafale won vs Eurofighter – 7-1 – 4v4 4-0, 2v4 3-1

Potemkine Silver badge

Typhoon vs Rafale

This war shows at least something: the Rafale is a real usable multirole fighter when Typhoon is useless.

Eurofighter Typhoon: It's EVEN WORSE than we thought

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Money

"we UK taxpayers will have shelled out no less than £215m for each of our 107 jet"

Ha! For 5 times less UK could have acquired Rafale, which is a true multi-role combat aircraft, and that would have been a sign of willingness in term of european integration, at least speaking for the hardware.

I'm sad for the name "Typhoon", the first one, the Hawker, was a splendid aircraft.

SGI lays off 4 per cent of workforce

Potemkine Silver badge
Pirate

Human resources

"Whatever is going on, SGI has to cut costs to meet its own profit targets, which it has not made public, even if it thinks it can make its top-line numbers with 55 fewer people"

or

"Thank you people for having worked to hard to make SGI profitable again. Now get out."

Grief and disbelief greet Elop's Nokia revolution

Potemkine Silver badge

Managers don't make good entrepreneurs

When a company shlashes its R&D, it is killing itself. Elop is burying Nokia.

Galileo euro-satnav 'driven by French military', says sacked CEO

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Self defence

"with GPS already free and as dependable as most people could reasonably ask for" - at least as long as the Pentagon says so! If Europe wants to be free and strong, it has to be independent.

It's weird to see that so many in UK trust US so blindly to give the Pentagon the keys of their nuclear arsenal, and rely on the US to defend its national soil.

In UK there is a constant euro-bashing in the name of independence when in the facts it is a US poodle. How weird.

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