Posts by Phil O'Sophical 7402 publicly visible posts • joined 28 Oct 2011
once it gains power
But there's the problem. In a truly democratic state parties don't "gain" power, they are "given" power, and if the populace chooses to give it to extremists, well that's arguably a democratic outcome.
One of the arguments in favour of not silencing extreme views is that people can see them for what they are, without the subversive glamour of "the state is blocking them, so they must be saying something worth listening to".
The big difference is that with open source at least you or anybody can inspect the code, contribute to it, patch it, fix it.
"can" being the important word. I've seen several of occasions where a security bug is notified to the community (which could be one man & his dog in a shed) and the response is "meh, I'm to busy to look at that, it's not that bad and looks complicated". Now, certainly, you can fork & fix (and test) it yourself if you need to, but you then need to factor in the cost of doing that again for every new release that comes out, and big companies don't like that. The reason many big companies use FOSS is because they think it saves them the effort of doing it themselves.
There is simply no way that all of those vendors have chosen to adopt it without scrutinising the code.
Don't you believe it. In my experience they spend far more effort scrutinisng the license to make sure they can't be sued, as long as it downloads & compiles no-one looks at the code. They assume that "many eyes" have already done so. Our in-house code gets far more detailed code review and design scrutiny than any FOSS we ship does, sadly.
SWMBO & myself have both had our vaccinations.
Not being in the UK, I haven't had even one dose yet. My wife, who has asthma and is therefore at a higher risk, is hoping to get a vaccination sometime but not really expecting it before the summer. I'm not expecting one until maybe September. If we were in the UK we could expect it within the next 2 months.
I can't see any scientific basis for stretching that
I think that's not entirely accurate, the trials showed that considerable immunity for several months was conferred after one dose, and many other authorities (CDC etc.) have agreed that some spacing will not detract from the efficacy. There is some disagreement over the amount of spacing, true, but given the supply issues that some manufacturers are hitting, anything which keeps the vaccinations on track while those issues are resolved will help.
However they obviously realised that having more people wit limited immunity results in less pressure on the NHS
Well, less pressure on the NHS because fewer people are ill, which is surely good? Looking at it purely as a political game to play the NHS numbers is a bit unfair, those numbers aren't just targets, they mean something in terms of reduced deaths.
Inevitably there'll be a percentage of people who've had a single dose taking more risks over a longer period and consequently some of them will catch COVID whilst waiting for their second dose and a few will die.
Equally some people who wouldn't have been vaccinated would die without it, it's a question of probabilities, and the scientific opinion is coming round to accept some additional spacing, up to 42 days.
That will have a perfectly foreseeable political impact but I doubt BoJo & Hancock will have looked that far ahead.
They're politicians, everything they do is based on possible future political impact, at least up to the point where they don't expect to be around to handle it.
I can't imagine that this is anything more than political expediency over scientific advice.
Political expediency in what way? Are you suggesting that possibly saving more lives is being done just for expediency? That's reaching a bit, and scientific advice is not against this. This whole situation is new, and the scientists are no more expert than anyone, yet. They are naturally (over)cautious, and government has to look at the big picture & do what it thinks is best on the whole.
We’ve seen it with the covid response (which has lead to the highest death rate per capita in the world),
Not correct, Belgium and Slovenia have higher rates, and several others are so close that the differences in how deaths are counted makes a bigger effect.
In any case, that's down to a lot more than government. A lot depends on the general obedience of the population, which varies a lot. Can you see the general British population tolerating the French lockdown requirements to carry signed papers to show to the police when you're stopped? If a UK government tried that I suspect we'd see people burning them in the streets. The UK is also a lot more densely populated than other countries (Belgium is higher) which encourages spread of any virus, and it has a larger proportion of overweight people which increases mortality rate.
When you compare the government actions & death rates across most countries the most striking thing is how little difference government policy has made, outside of the totalitarian countries where people are conditioned to obey government "or else" (and where the publicly announced figures are suspect in any case).
https://steemit.com/fun/@detlev/the-best-firewall-howto-activate-total-security
Joking aside, how many of these systems really need to be accessible from outside?
I'd make a list (pen and paper), of things to pack and things to shut off/check
I do that. Unfortunately it doesn't have the negative things on it, specifically "don't go to the airport with your wife's car keys still in your coat pocket". That didn't do much for my popularity.
what you are saying is they released software based on a license they didn't understand or they have basically reneged on something they previously released.
Yes, either didn't understand, or didn't take the time to understand fully.
I wasn't suggesting that Stallman/FSF are in any way to blame, just that they have popularised a different model of OSS which people buy into without necessarily considering all the angles.
My take is Elasticsearch has seen the $$$ AWS makes and gone... we want some of that action.
Exactly, and they really should have thought of that before releasing their code as FOSS without suitable conditions.
In the days when people distributed software as "shareware" it was not unusual to find license terms which allowed free non-commercial use, but expected commercial businesses to pay for it (or simply not to use it).
The arrival of the open source mindset, and especially the "commercial software is evil" attitude from people like Stallman and the FSF, has led to many people releasing software as "free" without really thinking through the consequences. It's all very well to put something out there with no strings attached, either just to be 'nice', or to avoid responsibility to support it, but that comes with a price: anyone can use it according to the "free" license that you chose, and you don't get to complain later that it's "unfair" for them to make money doing so.
Is it a telecomms service? The description of "a fee-based service for registering and searching land rights in Northern Ireland." makes it sound like a fairly generic database lookup system. I'm sure the usual suspects like Crapita would have been able to do it, and probably overcharged even more.
As for the comment in the article "I can say, with the benefit of hindsight, that if we were doing it now, we would do it differently.", we're talking about the Executive that organized the "cash for ash" business, so permit me to be sceptical.
The same rules exist elsewhere. In the UK if you're caught driving when drunk you'll get a minimum 1 year driving ban and a hefty fine. If you kill someone when driving drunk you'll face jail time. More severe consequences for the crime make a big difference to the perceived severity of the crime itself.
US coronavirus deaths per 100,000 population is about 1,000, in the UK it is about 1,500.
You're out by more than an order of magnitude. The figure for the USA is 1160 per million (not per 100,000),
The UK figure is 1267 per million, calculated as 84,767 in a population of 66.9m. Regionally it is:
Engl 1316 (74085/56.3m)
Wales 1290 (4063/3.15m)
Scot 928 (5102/5.5m)
N.I. 800 (1517/1.9m)
Total 1267 (84767/66.9m)
We currently serve our users from various co-located data centers located throughout the world.
Every other type of burger (plain, cheese, egg) had a splodge of salad cream on the tomato, but this was prohibited when pineapple was present. Apparently customers would complain that it didn't taste good, so they must have had some tastebuds.
Of course. Hawaiian burgers should have thousand-island dressing, not mayo.
realistic images of animals, objects, or scenes.
Well, bugger me with a fish fork.
I wonder if they've looked into Heraldic language? I'm sure three coloured cubes won't be as tricky to describe as the Royal Coat of Arms:
Quarterly, first and fourth Gules three Lions passant gardant in pale Or armed and langued Azure (for England), second quarter Or a Lion rampant within a double tressure flory-counter-flory Gules (for Scotland), third quarter Azure a Harp Or stringed Argent (for Ireland), the whole surrounded by the Garter; for a Crest, upon the Royal helm the Imperial Crown Proper, thereon a Lion statant gardant Or imperially crowned Proper; Mantling Or and Ermine; for Supporters, dexter a Lion rampant gardant Or crowned as the Crest, sinister a Unicorn Argent armed, crined and unguled Proper, gorged with a Coronet Or composed of Crosses patées and Fleurs-de-lis a Chain affixed thereto passing between the forelegs and reflexed over the back also Or. Motto "Dieu et mon Droit" in the compartment below the shield, with the Union Rose, Shamrock and Thistle engrafted on the same stem.
It's only a quirk of the American electoral system that gave him power in the 2016 election. (62,984,828 to Trump, 65,853,514 to Clinton). He never had legitimacy.
He did, the system gave it to him. We may think it's a bizarre system, and maybe it will change some day, but it's the system the US chose, and we have to work with the outcome. It isn't for us to tell the US how to elect its leaders.
Johnson started out being rude about Trump, later he became overtly pally.
He's a politician, he'll appear to be pally with whoever he needs to be to get what he wants. I'm pally with my neighbours, doesn't mean I approve of all aspects of how they run their homes or raise their children.
Farage has always been pally with Trump. Mogg, Gove ditto.
I'd put Farage in the "useful idiot" category, Mogg is too religious and Gove is just too slimy for me, but there again Mogg & Gove at least were elected, and have to be used as best they can.
Trumpism is a far right-wing project, ditto Brexit.
No, Brexit isn't a far-right project, any more than the EU is a far-left one, that's far too simplistic an analysis. There were many Tories who supported Remain, and Brexit was carried through votes of people in quite left-wing areas. If you want to hang a label on it, it was perhaps a libertarian project, but fundamentally it's just a way of escaping a failing economic and political polity and having the opportunity to do better. As with all opportunities, one can use them or not.
And I will never stop complaining about Brexit (and I will support all attempts to rejoin and strengthen the EU).
Well, there we'll just have to disagree.
IIRC the Vice President with others in nominated offices can declare the POTUS unfit by the 25th Amendment
From what I've read about this it may not be so easy. The 25th amendment allows the VP+cabinet to replace a president who is unable to fulfil the role, through illness or incapacity, but it doesn't provide for removing a president who is unfit or shows poor judgement. Impeachment is the solution to that, and there isn't enough time left. Maybe if they could get a medical judgement of dementia or insanity they could use the 25th, but that seems unlikely to be possible before Jan 20th. If he won't go after that, of course, they have other alternatives. Starting with having him arrested for trespass.
Similarly, if you continue to support his enablers in the UK (who, not coincidentally, are also the authors of our current disaster - Brexit) then you really aren’t deserving of any respect at all.
I entirely agree with your comments on Trump, the man is a dangerous megalomaniac and a disgrace to his office and his country, but I take great offence at you drawing parallels with the UK. Trump was democratically elected by Americans, and like him or not, our politicians, of all parties, had little choice but to work with him, just as they do with Putin and Xi Jinping. They have all made it very clear that they accept Biden as his successor and have condemned yesterday's disgraceful scenes in DC. To use Trump's behaviour as an excuse to complain about Brexit is beneath contempt.
Sorry, your wishful thinking is doomed. By the passage of time.
First, the simple fact that Remain was strongly supported by young people. Personally I don't know a single Brexiteer under 50. Of course I am sure there were some. But not many under 25.
That argument has been made before, and it has one major snag: if it were correct, we would have seen support for the EU steadily increasing over the past 30-odd years as the old 'leavers' died off and the young 'remainers' increased. That hasn't happened. The same argument is made between simple left & right politics, UK Labour has more support among the under 25's, and the Conservatives have major support in the over 50's, yet that is pretty much constant.
The bit you're missing is that somewhere between ages 25 and age 50 people's political views change. As they become older and more experienced they become more pragmatic, and less naive. In simple terms, remainers become leavers.
Any referendum held while we are not a member will be biased towards rejoining as whatever economic or political problems exist will be painted as magically going away by joining.
For that to happen, the generation which remembers those problems has to pass on. We see that in ordinary politics, where many young people who don't remember the Labour governments of the 1960s saw the solutions offered by Corbyn as new, magic solutions. Those of us who lived through the 60s and 70s, not so much. Perhaps in 25 years, if the EU is still around, a new generation will buy into its promises, but only if its current failures haven't killed it, and have been forgotten. That's a big "if".
If you want us not to rejoin within 20 years you have to campaign to disallow another referendum - because human nature means "rejoin" will win a referendum when it is held.
Now who's indulging in wishful thinking? Human nature is to co-operate, as we did in the common market. It is very much against human nature to surrender control over something which is seen as "ours" to "them", which is what rejoining would be seen as.
If at any time over the past 100-odd years you had asked the Republic of Ireland to rejoin the UK, would human nature mean that they would automatically have voted yes? Or if Scotland were to vote to leave the UK would you assume that a second referendum a few years later would automatically vote to rejoin? I very much doubt it in either case, for exactly the same reasons that I can't see the UK ever voting to rejoin the EU.
I said it the day after the referendum, and I will repeat it now: "So the Tory right wing has killed the Pound Sterling. I never thought I would see it".
And you haven't. The pound used to be worth just under $5 until we dropped the gold standard, Bretton Woods started it around $4, eventually dropping to under $3 in simple numbers. Since it started to float, in real terms considering inflation and purchasing power, it's stayed pretty much at the same $ rate for many decades. More recently it was numerically at $2 before the 2008 crash, when it dropped to $1.4. Since then it's been up & down, but is back at $1.37 today, far from "killed".
Much the same applies to the GBP:EUR rate. 1.74EUR at best in 2000 when the Euro was very weak, 1.08 after the 2008 crash, now around 1.12.
My reasoning is that within 20 years after the referendum we will be desperate to rejoin
I can't see that ever happening. Years of complaining about the common market, 60% opposed to the formation of the EU 25 years ago, I see nothing about the future direction of the EU that would ever suggest even a slim majority to rejoin.
but remember there is no historical parallel, all other states eg. USA, China came into being ie. were unified, through war.
I think that's an overly-broad generalization, and by "war" you really mean "conquest". "war" is usually what causes them to split up.
Remember also the intent of the UN and the WTO, taken to their logical conclusion unification in some form is the inevitable conclusion.
Not at all. Indeed organizations like the UN and WTO are very much what the EU used to be, co-operating neighbours working to a common goal without anyone trying to enforce overall control. It was only when European politicians tried to go beyond that into a centralized superstate that things started to go badly wrong.
Fundamentally, it doesn't really matter whether the UK is or isn't in the EU, we will still be impacted by whatever happens in continental Europe...
I think you could replace "continental Europe" with "the rest of the world". We're all affected by what happens beyond our borders, the big difference is how much control we can have over that impact.
Well similarly soldiers are hired to fight, so why pay them a bonus when they are putting their lives at risk?
True enough. Recruiting posters notwithstanding, anyone who joins the army to "see the world" is a fool, soldiers are there to shoot people and get shot at, and there's no reason that I can see why they should be paid more when that happens.
I suppose it's better PR to add "combat pay" (or "operational allowance" as the UK calls it) rather than reduce their wages for "hanging about with nothing to do" in peacetime.
The morality and pragmatism should be clearer still - who is going to care for you when nurses are off sick or deceased?
You seem to assume that they only do it for the money, which I doubt. It's a vocation, they do it because they want to and the risk of getting sick is just part of the job. It could happen any time, not just when there's a pandemic.
There are billions being paid to friends of Tories for dubious contracts
Don't play silly party political games, you cheapen your argument.
nurses should be getting the same.
Why? Their job is looking after the sick, for which they get paid. Maybe not enough, which is a separate issue, but there's no reason that they should get a bonus for doing the job they were hired for. Overtime, perhaps, if they're working more hours than usual.
The report does not include science and maths
So, STEM without the S and M(!)? Not directly comparable, and it still says that 14% of the UK engineering industry is female.
It's also interesting that of the degree-qualified people working in engineering 52% are women, against 27% men, perhaps suggesting that women are well represented at the design & management levels, but less so at the oily rag end.
