Posts by Phil O'Sophical 7402 publicly visible posts • joined 28 Oct 2011
This could be one of those situations where the ambiguous status of NI (with both UK and RoI accepting it as 'theirs') could be useful. A UK company could just use an accommodation address in Belfast & register the domain for "Belfast, Ireland". Hard for the EU to complain about that while it's also objecting to a hard border.
Patently wrong : you had as much control as any other member of the EU.
Yes, that's what I said. None.
It's called sharing. I understand that it's a concept that can be a tad difficult to grasp, but normally that issue is handled in PreSchool.
Which is also where most children learn to grow out of name calling as a response to arguments that they can't counter.
.eu is the country code top-level domain (ccTLD) for the European Union (EU).
Now that's an interesting note, is that from an official EU document?
European Union is an English phrase. Given suggestions from politicians within the EU that once the UK leaves they'll be able to forget about English, won't they then be "L'Union européenne", in which case they should take over ".ue" and force everyone to move to that. Problem solved! Well, except for Venezuela I suppose...
Ranting aside, a thought just struck me, is brexit just a symptom of a 'hankering for lost youth' ?
Is Remain just a symptom of immaturity and a reluctance to leave home and parental comfort?
I'd prefer that to my usual hypothesis that it's a bunch of thick racists
Which, of course, says far more about you and your prejudices than it does about leavers, whom you don't seem to know.
I didn't have a vote in the referendum, because I've lived outside the UK (in an EU country) for too long. I would have supported the leave vote if I could because one thing living outside the UK, in the EU, teaches you is that the EU is broken. It's an economically and politically failed polity that was never wanted by anyone but politicians, and does more harm than good. We had a Common Market that worked, but that didn't give the politicians the control they needed, so they had to start empire-building. Surely history has taught us what inevitably happens to European empires?
I do recall an age before the EU, I was 34 when we were forced into it in 1993 without a referendum. I even recall the notably non-golden era before 1973, when we joined the EEC. I'm not in my 70's or 80's, nor racist, and my support for leave is based on a dislike of both the paternalistic "mummy knows best" policies which are eroding our freedom, and the economic disaster of the centrally-planned Euro zone which really only works for its biggest member, Germany.
Certainly Brexit is going to be a huge challenge, and the first few years after it are likely to be difficult for the UK, especially if we see more of the petty, spiteful, actions that this article describes. I can't blame the EU politicians, of course. A successful Brexit is their worst nightmare, since it would show that they aren't needed and could encourage others to follow suit. They will use every dirty trick they can to make sure that it fails.
Stiil, I truly believe that it is an opportunity for the UK. It's had a generally better economy than the eurozone average, and this is a chance to build on that. Clearly some people aren't interested in trying, but that's inevitable. There are always people who'll be content with mediocrity if it means that they don't have to do any work themselves.
As to the topic of the article, the ".eu" domain, there are non-US companies registered as ".com", and many media companies have ",tv" despite not being in Tuvalu. If the registrars for ".eu" wish to restrict it to businesses based in the ".eu" that's up to them. It costs very little to set up a shell company in an EU member state for businesses that really care. It wouldn't surprise me if many of the current domain names are held by companes purely as a defence against malicious use. For example http://www.cocacola.eu/ takes you straight to http://www.coca-cola.com/global/. It's hardly a business with dedicated EU roots, though.
Of course, come March 29th next year that's not going to be a problem -- UK passport holders will join the 'other ranks' at the border controls.
I think that remains to be seen.
A logical corollary of that position would be that UK airports like Heathrow would put EU/EEA citizens into the "others" queue, and so would have one queue for UK (and possibly Irish) passports, and one huge queue for "others". I can't see that being popular with European visitors so they may well retain the EEA/elsewhere split, with an expectation that it would be reciprocal. After all, the actual passport check is no different, same scan and results go to same computer. The only difference might be that the official will ask more questions for a non-EEA passport. As with so many things, the EU may mandate that its members do certain things in a certain way, but it doesn't mean that non-members can't choose to do the same if they wish.
That's certainly not true at Calais. The recent terror incidents have often resulted in French troops searching car boots (duplicated by security staff BTW) but scanning passports non.
The Schengen rules changed about a year ago, they now say:
"The amendment obliges member states to carry out systematic checks against relevant databases on all persons, including those enjoying the right of free movement under EU law (i.e. EU citizens and members of their families who are not EU citizens) when they cross the external borders. The databases against which checks will be carried out include the Schengen Information System (SIS) and Interpol's database on stolen and lost travel documents (SLTD). The checks will also enable member states to verify that those persons do not represent a threat to public policy, internal security or public health. This obligation shall apply at all external borders (air, sea and land borders), both at entry and exit.
I would rather start with just having one identifier that people use
To me, the problem with an ID card system is when it becomes compulsory. I have no problem with having the option to get an ID card which would carry exactly the ID you propose. It could also serve as age ID for buying alcohol, etc.
Where I dislike such things is when having, and carrying, it becomes mandatory (which is the case in about half the EU countries). That effectively criminalizes forgetfulness and comes too close to "papers, please" stop & search powers.
The UK has a poor reputation for border control (this article demonstrates that perfectly) and the other Schengen members would balk at the thought of the UK becoming a backdoor into Schengen.
I'm, sorry, but you have to be joking. Comparing the Italian and Greek borders, where most immigrants arrive into the UK at present, with the UK, and then claiming the UK is a sieve, is nonsense. I suspect this is a more accurate view of an external Schengen border: http://www.lagunadeifenici.it/2016/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/riserva-naturale-torre-san-teodoro.jpg
If Switzerland can manage without being completely overrun
Leaving aside the Schegen issues, whichis why this is possible, have you been reading the French/Swiss press from border regions lately? The whole issue of "Frontaliers" (people who work in Switzerland but live in France where it's cheaper) is a very hot one for the Swiss, many of whom want to see the border much less open. Given the Swiss love of direct democracy via referendums it wouldn't surprise me to see that heatup more in the future.
I tried in Macedonia, on leaving the passport checking dude looked at me a bit funny and asked if I had another passport
That should be the same everywhere, even without visas or stamps, it's generally not a great idea to mix'n'match. Passports are scanned at exit & entry and anyone trying to leave when they apparently didn't enter (or vice-versa) should get a red flag). Physical stamps on paper passport pages are a very outdated mechanism now, I suspect they're only there as a backup to the electronic controls.
Also remember the US position that if a US citizen who also has, say, an Irish passport uses it to enter an EU country they may not be able to call on a US embassy for help if they get into trouble. They will be politely invited to contact the Irish consulate, since they entered the country by claiming to be Irish. Other countries take a similar position.
The fact is that people from UK are going to need visa and all types of permit after UK leaves the EU.<
a) The UK isn't in the Schengen area today anyway, so nothing changes there.
b) The future plans for the Schengen visa are for it to be more like a US ESTA or Canadian ETA, an electronic authorization that you get online. Even places like India have dropped physical tourist visas stamped in your passport now, and are moving to electronic ones.
Do you not think these could have changed someones mind?
Of course, but so could the similar stories pushing the other way, the so-called "Project fear"
"economy would drop into a recession"
"unemployment increase of 500,000"
"GDP would drop 3.6%"
"No more Spanish holidays"
"Expats would be thrown out"
etc.
Both sides used propaganda to push their agenda, and I doubt if the effects will be easy to measure, or if the lies on one side were more believed than those on the other.
Personally I just ignore crap when it has a clear agenda.
Seems like a sound philosophy to me.
<i.It's easy to find out how that will go : just look at any divorce where the guy walks out on the faithful woman.</i>
Except that in this case there wasn't a faithful woman any more, just the in-laws who never wanted the marriage in the first place. Right now they're refusing access to the children, but those children will grow up and have their own opinons.
Just more petty politics.
Exactly. Galileo is overseen by the EU and the ESA (and is way behind scheduled and over budget). The ESA isn't even an EU organization, the UK is still a leading member of it. This is just more childish EU politicians (Selmayr likely has a finger in it) threatening to take their ball & go home because we've said we don't like them. If they want our money, they'll find a way to kiss & make up.
Rather than argue about the software itself, they've chosen to argue about the medium on which it is supplied.
I think it's more that they've decided that the two are not the same thing.
There's precedent for that. I remember many years ago (pre-EU rules) the UK company where I then worked getting a copy of some software (the SPICE simulator, IIRC) from the US. It was supplied on ½" magtape, and the excise people took the view that the software was not a tangible good, and so not subject to import duties. The physical tape, however, was dutiable. The result was that we had a short period, 2-3 weeks, during which we could temporarily import the tape and then export it again without being expected to pay duty. If we kept it past that period we'd have had to pay. My first task on getting it was to copy the tape & send it back.
I'm guessing that the assumed value of the tape was calculated as the total product cost, I can't imagine the duty on a blank tape spool being high enough for all the hassle, so none of it really made sense. Them's the rules, though.
you've also got so many connections to think about when writing a function that I bet most don't even consider contract testing that HTTPS API. How do you know you haven't broken the contract between your new release and everything that consumes the function's API?
Sounds like a security nightmare. Every one of those APIs could mark a trust boundary where data is passing from untrusted (a user) to trusted (the database), or vice-versa. Testing that to ensure that there are no holes for, say, SQL injection, or authentication spoofing, interception, etc. will be a huge job. Which means no-one will do it.
IOC can be compared to Full Operating Capability (FOC). Think of IOC as similar to Windows’ Safe Mode – and FOC as the whole shebang.
"617 squadron, scramble, scramble"
"Ah, give us a few minutes, it's just rebooting after an upgrade. Oh, hang on, it's booted into IOC, says there's a driver issue"
The Computer History Museum in MountainView used to have (may still have, I don't know) one of the original Google racks on display. A quick search found these photos, I'm sure there are others: https://www.flickr.com/photos/sparker/173567346
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nationalmuseumofamericanhistory/9623001486
*anyone else remember that?
Oh yes, although I think ARCnet was 93Ω, nothing as "normal" as 75. I spent weeks trying to track down an intermittent problem where a cluster would grind to a halt under heavy network load, eventually finding 5m of ARCnet coax (in the underfloor trunking) that had been used to extend the ethernet network to a workstation across the room. It was really bizarre because I don't think we'd ever had any ARCnet in that office!
Then we had the sysadmin who "discovered" that she could add more systems to the network in an office by using "Y" phone adapters plugged into the RJ45 ethernet sockets, instead of having to install more 10baseT and extra hubs. It took me a while with a whiteboard to explain how ethernet collision detection worked (or didn't, in that case). It's amazing that it seemed to work at all, I guess that TCP was just too good at cleaning up the mess.
a DECwriter was a keyboard terminal, but with paper, not a screen
Ah yes, as used on VAXen for the console terminal.
They were useful, because when the system crashed the console printout had a very distinctive rhythm, several (4?) long lines of error text followed by the rapid brrp-brrp-brrp-brrp of a stack dump, one word per line. We already knew what had happened even before someone asked "is there a problem with the VAX?"
You could bore a couple more chunnels just for power but that's fairly expensive...)
Every European country seems to have the same solution for power shortages: buy the extra power needed from their neighbours.
There's a certain impractical circularity about that...
Think of a petrol car that automatically refills its tank every time you park it,
Which would require every single parking place to have a fuel pump. Silly idea, and it won't work for electric charging either.
Batteries are currently the best electrical energy storage system we have. Until someone invents a better ones, EVs will keep using batteries!
Which is why EVs aren't the solution.
The biggest problem I found with our electric car was that some plonker in a large luxury sedan would use the charging bays to park in
Let's look at the opposite situation. Maybe you have charging bays where you can stop for 30-60 minutes for a quick top-up when shopping or grabbing lunch, but what about when you go on holiday and take a plane or a train? Your car sits in an airport or station car park for two weeks. It'll be fully charged after the first 8 hours or so, do you then become that plonker blocking the space for days? Or will car parks have to employ attendants to move cars around?
I know the problems we had pre-EU. I can remember the £50/year limit on spending while abroad, having to get visas for a host of countries and being limited to a couple of bottles of vino on my return.
That's a red herring. Those limits and visa issues were decided by the governments of the time and existed for many non-European countries, such as the US. They don't exist for EU or non-EU today, and yet we haven't had to join the US. I've regularly transferred several $K between the US and Europe via online banking, the only formalities are to declare the source for tax purposes. Certainly there are still limits, if you take more than $10K in cash into the US you'll have to declare it, but that applies within the EU as well. Put £20K in a suitcase & hop on a flight to Berlin, or drive from Spain to France, and you're likely to end up in an long interview with the drugs and/or money-laundering police. Not being in the EU need not mean a return to visas or currency controls.
Want to return to having to get one for every SD card? USB Stick? Every bit of storage in your Laptop or Camera or Phone? No carnet? Then pay the EU Import Tax on the spot or lose the drive.
None of which happens today when you travel to most of the 160+ countries that are not in the EU. Do you have to delare your SD card at the US border? Pay import duties on your phone when you enter Japan?
Why assume the worst? It's almost like you'd be happy if the UK got a kicking, why? It's not helpful.
