Posts by Mooseman

Of course Russia's ex-space boss doubts US set foot on the Moon

"Russia had competent armed forces capable of defeating the Nazi menace in 1945"

Sort of - massive and overwhelming numbers and a complete disregard for human life.

Re: Whatever next?

"Russia was able to keep a dozen or more soviet republics in line"

"how Russia managed to feed and employ it's own population in the 60's"

"a military that made the west quake in their boots and kept us awake at night in fear"

First question - a huge and merciless military that's always been very good at crushing unarmed protestors with tanks.

Second question - the Soviet Union's agriculture was woefully inefficient, even after reforms by Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Gorbachev. There were regular shortages of basic food products (bread queues etc), and it used income generated by exporting precious metals to buy grain. They also had the Ukrainian output which they no longer have.

Third question - they had, on paper, a huge and powerful military that had overcome the Nazis in WW2 (along with a lot of other factors they basically threw manpower into the effort). The threat of nuclear war was also never far below the surface in any consideration of military conflict with the Soviets. Oh, and a vast amount of propaganda.

Since Putin and other oligarchs came to power, military spending has been heavily inhibited by private individual's self-aggrandisement. Private yachts account for a substantial portion of the Russian naval budget. They still only have one aircraft carrier that sails everywhere with tugs for when it inevitably breaks down.

Florida man insists he didn't violate the law by keeping Top Secret docs

Re: What I cannot understand ...

"Again it falls to childish personal attacks on him"

Did you watch him mock a disabled reporter live on TV? And you're whining about people saying nasty things about your hero? Predictable but rather sad.

Re: What About The Current Resident?

"If you are posting from the UK, that might be amusing"

Most of our laws are relatively modern - no doubt you'll quote the laws allowing you to cut off a Scotsman's head if you see him south of the border, etc. All those "laws" are long since gone, and kept alive by myth. Unlike the US, we don't have a book of laws 250 years old that we have to adhere to. Some of our laws like habeas corpus are still in use, even in the US.

Fed up with slammed servers, IT replaced iTunes backups with a cow of a file

Re: Years ago....

"Games. Thousands upon thousands of games."

We had the same issue - personal space on the server was for work-related files only, no private documentation, no mp3 files, no games and no .exe files.

we used to do a sweep once a month and issue emails to people who stored personal stuff on the server telling them to remove it. Music and executables were deleted, although when work was slack we used to run quake over the network (before deleting the naughty files from the users' drives)

Dyson moans about state of UK science and tech, forgets to suck up his own mess

Re: With two-faced "friends" like Dyson, Britain doesn't need enemies

" if you come equipped to chain yourself across a road and stop other people going about their lawful business or similar"

Nope, the anti royalists were not equipped to do anything othe rthan chant and wave banners. Even the police admit that. And stopping people going about their "lawful business" (however briefly)is rather the point of a protest. If everyone stood around going "careful now" and "down with this sort of thing" (but not too loudly in case they caused someone to feel upset) what would ever be achieved?

Re: With two-faced "friends" like Dyson, Britain doesn't need enemies

"It's time the British, for once, copied the French and Russians and just disposed of those leeches"

Yes, that worked out well didn't it? The French had the Terror for a few years (self appointed leaders of the revolution killing off anyone who disagreed with them in any way) then rolled over and declared Napoleon emperor. Russia gave us the first communist country where all men were equal, especially those at the top echelons, who were kept in power by the secret police.

You're really not selling it to me on this.

Re: One more word on the UK...

" Brexit *could* have been a chance for more democracy versus a quite undemocratic EU"

Care to explain that predictably commonplace accusation?

You sound like you are being reasonable right up until you repeat oft-quoted nonsense and end with a jibe at the BBC (that well-known bastion of woke lefties run by a bunch or Boris Johnson fans) and the Guardian. Neomarxism? What are you on about?

Re: Pay

"I would still be 50K better off and have a lower cost of living."

Right up until the point that you actually had to cough up for your vastly inflated hospital care via your overpriced copay system.

Re: Reporting just as bad as ever in El' Reg...

"So saturating a Labour market with cheap labour, forcing wages down and forcing the cost of living higher is more palatable to you.

Thats exactly what the EU was doing."

Which is why wages in Europe are generally higher than here, of course. Along with social benefits. Doesn't really fit with the rabid anti EU nonsense though, so I'm sure you'll ignore it.

Re: With two-faced "friends" like Dyson, Britain doesn't need enemies

"I very much doubt that the cost of running a presidency would run to £70 million / year"

I assume you mean it would cost a heap more than that (which it would)

Re: With two-faced "friends" like Dyson, Britain doesn't need enemies

"Jonathan Pie?"

Genuis!

Re: With two-faced "friends" like Dyson, Britain doesn't need enemies

"And how is Biden (AKA the dementia patient) any better?"

If you seriously have to ask that question you need help.

Re: With two-faced "friends" like Dyson, Britain doesn't need enemies

"a House of Commons that actually reflects public opinion,"

Seriously? The public voted in the tories with an 80 seat majority in 2019, are you telling us that they didnt want this bunch of lying psychopathic racist idiots in charge? Public opinion is a very dangerous tool to use, considering most people dont care enough about politics and truth beyond what they are fed in their daily paper, and as such as easily (lets be kind) foreign media moguls. So who would really choose our head of state and parliament?

Re: With two-faced "friends" like Dyson, Britain doesn't need enemies

"this particular comments section is far worse than usual."

We seem to have acquired a couple of new faeces, sorry, faces that imagine that their puerile name calling and playground language is somehow a way of making them seem clever. Maybe time for the mods to do some pruning.

Re: With two-faced "friends" like Dyson, Britain doesn't need enemies

"do you prefer a twat with a fancy hat, who talks to fucking plants and believes in fucking woo woo?"

Sorry, are you under the impression that swearing makes you seem clever or tough? If you can't actually string a collection of words into a coherent sentence without swearing maybe you should try engaging your brain. Do you talk to people in general like that? It's pathetic.

Re: With two-faced "friends" like Dyson, Britain doesn't need enemies

"The trouble with the other party is that they have destroyed the economy every time they were in power; the problem with the Tories is that they have adopted the other parties socialist policies."

This old nonsense again? When has labour "destroyed the economy" ? You might want to look up the national debt under the conservatives (pre covid btw) that despite austerity was more than every labour government ever, combined. Whats next in your arsenal of "ooh but labour"? The famous "note"? What socialist policies did the tories adopt? What socialist policies (do you know what the word even means?) did labour under Blair force on us?

Shall we wait?

Re: With two-faced "friends" like Dyson, Britain doesn't need enemies

"Personally I favour a deduction from the number of politicians, rather than additions to that number and if we are honest, so does a majority of the voting populace in the UK."

The voting public in the UK gave us brexit and the tory government. Why would you like fewer MPs ? I thought the job of MP was to represent (among other things) his or her constituency members in parliament. If we have fewer MPs then your voice will be even less heard than it is now.

Re: With two-faced "friends" like Dyson, Britain doesn't need enemies

"Oh, we can protest as much as we want."

Not anymore we can't. The government has a new fun law that means you can be arrested and detained for looking like you might cause a nuisance.

Re: With two-faced "friends" like Dyson, Britain doesn't need enemies

"Here's one of many."

The queens lawyer lobbied parliament in the 70s. How is this interfering in the democratic process any more than countless other lobbying groups and individuals? I get that you dont like the royals but this smacks of desperation. At least you can string a sentence together unlike some around here, and frankly I couldnt care less about them, but I can't see that we would be any better off with an "elected" president (given the publics tendency to vote for any old idiot with floppy hair) or less open to abuse of power and position.

Re: With two-faced "friends" like Dyson, Britain doesn't need enemies

"They couldn't credibly claim that Remain would lead to better things, because that self-evidently wouldn't be the case."

The remain campaign was utterly feeble - the conservatives led by Cameron couldn't believe that the country would fall for the obvious lies and nonsense peddled by Farage et al, so didn't come up wiht anything to counter the glib bluster of the arch liar Johnson, and Corbyn was basically anti EU, bizarrely, given that EU workers had far better protection than ours now have.

What it did show is that people (as in the 2019 GE) are ore than happy to vote on attention grabbing headlines and 3 word slogans. Oh and of course the little hateful people that Cameron tried to quiet with his ludicrous referendum. U fortunately they are the kind of people that are still shouting, with increased desperation, about it and as usual can only hurl lies and insults at others as if they are still in short trousers.

Re: Pay

"EU forced the EU membership to sell off its state assets/utilities to the EU corporations for privatization for a pittance."

Again, exmples? Are you going to say Ford again? If so we will point and laugh.

Re: Reporting just as bad as ever in El' Reg...

"we should actually try running our economy like an independent trading nation, rather than getting all teary eyed over some nostalgic (and largely misleading) fantasy of how lovely it all used to be."

An independent trading nation? In a global economy? How well is that going? What has it got to do with holidaymakers? We were part of the largest single trading bloc in the world - it wasnt perfect, agreed, but we were able to climb out of the cesspit of being the sick man of Europe fairly quickly, and business was booming. How's that doing now?

Re: Reporting just as bad as ever in El' Reg...

"The cost of living has primarily increased due to the huge inflation in energy and food costs. Unfortunately for your narrative, neither of these had anything to do with Brexit and everything to do with Russia invading their next door neighbour."

Unfortunately for you, energy costs were skyrocketing before Russia goose stepped into Ukraine. Most EU countries had gas reserves which they used to cushion the blow for consumers and iindustry. We had a massive storage capacity until the government (tory) chose not to pay towards the maintenance costs, leaving Centrica to fund them on its own. The UK gas storage therefore was limited to about 4 days' worth.

Oh, and energy costs in the EU were capped while ours went insane.

Do go on.

"Your demonstrate your ignorance of the purpose of the EU very clearly."

You demonstrate the standard inability of the quitling to spell or type. However, please illuminate us in our feeble ovine darkness - what is the "purpose" of the EU ?

If you can't tell us without stringing a load of fantasy cobblers together, or sneering without any substance (we already have codejunky for that), then maybe sitting there displaying your tinfoil hattery is not such a great idea.

Re: With two-faced "friends" like Dyson, Britain doesn't need enemies

"we, the people, would get to pick the winner every few years."

We, the people - apart from sounding horribly American - gave us Boaty McBoatface and brexit. Not a great recommedation really.

Re: With two-faced "friends" like Dyson, Britain doesn't need enemies

"meddling in democratic legislative process to protect their wealth."

Such as?

Re: With two-faced "friends" like Dyson, Britain doesn't need enemies

"Move then.. not so great in the EU either..."

Yup, there it is , the standard brexiter BS response. I'd love to be able to move and live in the EU, unfortunately you clowns made that much harder to do. How's all that winning going?

Is there anything tape can’t fix? This techie used it to defeat the Sun

Re: Not only mice

From a slightly different angle, we had users complaining that their interactive boards were behaving "oddly" - random cursor movements etc. Turns out (it being christmas time) that they had decorated their interactive boards with fairy lights....

Microsoft cries foul over UK gaming deal blocker but it's hard to feel sorry for them

Re: Great article!

"the EU do it so much better, because we hate the UK"

Poor little thing. Still, I'm sure somewhere inside that word salad you can point out all the benefits we have gained from brexit?

"You're deliberately cutting yourself off from a lot of good games if you let fanboism get in the way of owning both consoles."

Well done for totally missing the point. You may sit there smugly with your xbox and PS5 but to many people the question is, why should we have to buy a whole new console/PC just to play the games we want? It's not "fanboiism".

The UK's bad encryption law can't withstand global contempt

Re: One rule for them, another for the rest of us.

"They've been shown to be malicious fabrications - a fiction created by some BBC "producer"."

Ha ha ha, ha ha ha, ha ha ha,ha ha, ha h...oh you were serious? Bet you feel bloody silly now.

Re: One rule for them, another for the rest of us.

"not even journalists bothered to check such claims"

Some "journalists" were happily making up similar nonsense. Boris Johnson, for example.

Re: One rule for them, another for the rest of us.

"Except in N. Ireland"

Sadly NI isnt a shining example of political stability or common sense. The figures for the 2019 election still stand, at least for the rest of the UK.

Re: One rule for them, another for the rest of us.

"just slightly over 64% of "votes" cast in the last Mayoral election in London were bogus "

Really? Citation please. I've looked and looked and can find no evidence that supports that claim, or even a mention of those numbers.

The electoral commission site states "315 cases of alleged electoral fraud were investigated by the police during 2021. None of these cases led to a conviction. Police issued cautions in one case."

7 cases of suspected fraud were reported by the police to the electoral commission in the London mayor election.

So, somebody is talking bullshit.....

Re: One rule for them, another for the rest of us.

"The family idiots are usually dispatched to third class redbrick "universities" (former Polytechnics), where they're indoctrinated with various amounts of left-wing nonsense whilst doing their worthless "history", "sociology" or "media" "degrees" "

Wow, so much nonsense in one post. Congrats.

Re: Yet again the Tories come along with this bullshit.

"you've already begun to assume a great deal about me, based on your own prejudices and a few keywords."

Er, no. I asked a question based on your ranting about being called a racist. Yet your first defensive response is to call me prejudiced. Interesting. Oh, and you supported Farage right up until you suddenly realised he is nothing more than a self aggrandising self publicist, but you happily supported his lies about the EU and how great it would be for Britain if we ditched all the benefits of being inside the world's biggest single market?

I'd say my assumptions weren't too far off the mark.

Re: Cut the backlog

"Let's set up machine-guns along the cliffs of Dover. Close the ghettos overflow camps/hotels and send them to the gas.."

I know you think you're being clever, but I have read exactly those sentiments from people in discussions about the RNLI rescuing people from the Channel. You don't think that should the British government lurch even further to the right there wouldnt be plenty who would volunteer to do exactly that?

Re: We wouldn't want to admit fake refugees to the country

"During WWII, when the Nazis were killing thousands in gas chambers, how many genuine adult Jewish refugees did the UK admit?"

None at all, we were at war and nobody could escape from occupied Europe.

You would have been better to ask how many jewish refugees we took before the war, or how come it took private individuals to force the British government to take child refugees?

While you're at it, you could maybe explain what a "genuine" adult jewish refugee is? Bearing in mind that many of them were immediately incarcerated in internment camps I don't think we did terribly well.

Re: One rule for them, another for the rest of us.

" the ral problem: thecomparison with thw Nazi's, trivialising wht they did."

No, that's not the real problem at all - nowhere did Lineker trivialise the actions of the nazis. He made a point about comparing the language used by Braverman and that of the nazis in the early 1930s, that's all. And, sadly, he was completely correct.

Re: One rule for them, another for the rest of us.

"I take it you mean things like this"

Or the Duke or Marlborugh, who pays no tax at all but still receives farm subsidies ...

Re: One rule for them, another for the rest of us.

"privilege: Private Law."

Commander Vimes, is that you?

Re: One rule for them, another for the rest of us.

"educing voter fraud (which TMK has never actually occurred)"

Which we are now seeing in the ID proof required in local elections (and presumably in the next GE). The excuse is countering voter fraud, which has occurred - in the 2019 GE there were 4 (four) actual cases. Out of a possible voting population of 47,074,800, which makes the fraud percentage 0.00000008 %

Clearly this is a MAJOR issue and necessitates extra expense and hassle.

Or is it simply to deter people who are less likely to vote in the first place, usually the poor?

Re: One rule for them, another for the rest of us.

"you're confusing minor public schools, which are little different from state schools, with the real public schools."

Do tell - what's a "real" public school? Eton, Harrow, Rugby maybe? There are plenty of others that produce generally well rounded and well educated people that you might dismiss as "minor" but that's your issue not theirs. Your inverse snobbery lazily lumps together anyone who didnt go to a state school as some kind of entitled rich kid who cannot possible have any views other than hard right tory. It's amazing how wrong you can be. Take for example a man who was educated at Westminster school (maybe thats a minor school, fees for 13+ entry are currently ony at £31,464 per year...) and inherited his father's title. Raging right wing, fact-denying tory, right? See if you can work out who I'm talking about....

Re: One rule for them, another for the rest of us.

" maths and physics, not necessarily classics. We learned not to go into politics."

That only seems to apply in Britain - many EU poiticians are actually qualified in the departments they run. Imagine an education department being run by a teacher? Although your thinking falls down a little when you remember that Thatcher was a chemistry graduate.

Chinese company claims it's built batteries so dense they can power electric airplanes

Re: Contemporary Amperex Technology Co.

"Now that ChatGPT is freely available, will the world at last be purged of execrable Chinglish?"

Hopefully it will be purged of people being unable to spell "lose", or using "gifted" instead of "gave"

Re: Battery materials???

"2stroke diesels are more efficient, but unlikely to power aircraft!"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_diesel_engine

Re: Those are rookie numbers

"Modern Airliners suggests the difference is only 4 tonnes, and they burn (Quora, sorry no good source) about 8 tonnes of fuel during takeoff (don't know how far they include as takeoff)."

I believe "take off" in this context includes climbing to cruising altitude. Figures from Boeing suggest about 2300kg for a 737 and around 10000kg for a 747-400 freighter.

CEO sorry after telling staff to 'leave pity city' over bonuses

Re: Speaking the TRUTH

" you can EASILY get another job in another retail store when you work out yours is going to the wall...The CEOs? not so much"

If you really believe that pile of horse manure, I have a bridge to sell you.....

Wrong time to weaken encryption, UK IT chartered institute tells government

"the big guys. The terrorists. The kingpins of drugs, trafficking, pornography etc"

Terrorists tend to use simple technology - the Paris attackers used SMS to communicate. Even if they are on a watch list and have phones and emails tapped (and the emails are in plain english) nothing happens as there simply isnt the manpower to deal with this volume of information. The killers of Lee Rigby are a good example of this - they were known risks, their phones and computers were bugged, they made no secret of what they were doing, and yet were able to walk up and murder the guy.