Posts by Phil O'Sophical

Facebook Fake News won it for Trump? That's a Zombie theory

Re: Post-truth

That description of the population hasn't really changed in centuries, though. OK, maybe tax wasn't something that bothered ordinary folks until the "temporary" introduction of income tax to pay for the Napoleonic wars, but the rest aren't new.

Every government is accused of screwing up the education system, yet 200 years ago fewer people were literate and numerate. Confirmation bias has always been around, but in the past it just meant that all your mates in the village pub agreed with you that the landowner was a bastard.

Terorism wasn't a thing, but scare stories about immigration have been around forever, it's just that the "immigrants" were the clan from the next village who ate babies and would steal your daughters.

If anything, the big difference today is that we all have a bigger view. News from outside our town or village no longer travels at the speed of a horse, we're swamped by it every minute of the day, and we're made to feel that it's important. The apparent scope of the "problems" has expanded.

Politics today is just as much lies as it ever was, I don't really think things were more subtle in the past. There was nothing subtle about hellfire preachers forecasting eternal damnation for anyone who criticised the church or the King.

If anything, past control of ordinary folks was based more on fear; transportation or hanging for petty theft, maiming for poaching, etc. No need for subtlety or lies when you could just whack a peasant's hand off for scratching his arse in front of you.

Nest Cam: A compelling piece of hardware-software

Re: What would be really nice...

I don't need to worry if I'm ... on holiday or if I just want to turn off my phone!

Exactly. Why would I want to be bothered by Jehovah's Witlesses or double glazing salesmen when I'm not even at home, never mind adding "I think I saw someone" text messages to the "Have you got PPI?" ones. I have a deadlock on the door, and insurance. If some scum does manage to get in I think I'd prefer not to have my holiday spoiled when I can do nothing about it.

KCL staff offered emotional support, clergy chat to help get over data loss

Yesterday

I can't claim any credit for this, I saved it from Usenet a long time ago:

Yesterday,

All those backups seemed a waste of pay.

Now my database has gone away.

Oh I believe in yesterday.

Suddenly,

There's not half the files there used to be,

And there's a milestone hanging over me

The system crashed so suddenly.

I pushed something wrong

What it was I could not say.

Now all my data's gone

and I long for yesterday-ay-ay-ay.

Yesterday,

The need for back-ups seemed so far away.

I knew my data was all here to stay

Now I believe in yesterday.

IoT worm can hack Philips Hue lightbulbs, spread across cities

Re: hollowed-out trade mark

No idea who does the kitchen stuff that used to be Philips, the tumble driers, fridge, freezer, washing machine.

All sold to Whirlpool many years ago.

A cardboard desk? I won’t stand for it (actually I will)

Re: The virgins are in the cardboard

What are 3-ply virgins, and what's so special about the cardboard they corrugate?

Trump's plan: Tariffs on electronics, ban on skilled tech migrants, turn off the internet

Re: OMG! You mean I won't be able to buy, umm, errr, wait a mo, it'll come back to me

does #12 on the export list disturb anyone else? We really export almost $19 billion in Human/Animal Blood???

Damn, you're trying to corner the Black Pudding market? That is disturbing.

Re: And we thought BREXIT was bad

Putin succeeded Yeltsin just like Blair succeeded Major, except that Yeltsin was an awful lot worse than Major. The situation is very different.

I was referring more to the "time-limited", Putin was supposed to be term-limited as well, but he found a way around that.

Re: And we thought BREXIT was bad

what's rather depressing is that the same crude tricks that worked 80 years ago (and 800 years ago, etc.), work very well today

What's really depressing is that with 240,000,000 Americans to choose from, the Democrats couldn't find anyone better than Clinton to put up against him. The election could have been theirs for the winning...

Re: And we thought BREXIT was bad

Tump is a limited-time experience

The Russians probably thought that about Putin, too.

I wonder if the Founding Fathers had in mind the kind of buffoon that just got elected.

I rather suspect that the FFs would have been more familiar with people like Trump than with career politicians like Clinton.

Re: Efficiency kills jobs

It is simple Economics 101, that productivity increases come at the expense of jobs.

That is overly simplistic and only tells half the story. Productivity increases only come at the expense of jobs if consumption remains the same. If those productivity increases result in wage increases and more disposable income then consumption will increase, and result in job creation in other areas.

The net result is likely to be an overall increase in jobs.

GoPro drone moan brings more bad Karma

Karma?

Calling a product Karma just seems to be, well, tempting fate

Japanese cops arrest serial 'foot licker'

Re: Sounds like serious crime was afoot

I think you nailed it.

IPv4 is OVER. Really. So quit relying on it in new protocols, sheesh

Dual stacks have been around for 20 years. Deal with it FFS.

Dual-stack isn't a fix, its a kluge. You still need an IPv4 address on an IPv4 network for the IPv4 stack to work. Sure, once everything is running dual-stack you could turn v4 off. It doesn't solve the problem of v4-only devices.

Re: turning IPv4 off completely

turning off pulse-code dialling on telephones was viable until touch-tone phones had been the norm for 20 years or so.

And even there you could still plug either a tone or pulse phone into a socket, and as long as the exchange equipment could handle both you could connect to any other phone, old or new, pulse or tone.

If only IPv6 had been designed with that level of compatibility...

Rather than just getting an IPv6 address, slapping that into your gateway device, and done.

How then do the IPv4-only devices on my home network communicate with IPv6 servers on the wider internet?

How do the IPv4 devices on my home network communicate with new IPv6-only devices also on that network?

Ireland to fight against billing Apple for back-taxes

Re: Politicos covering their backs...

some politicos would need to explain why they give that advantage to Apple only

Do they? Irish corporate tax levels surely apply to all companies that operate in Ireland. Is it not just the case that only Apple have the lawyers and accountants who figured out how to use that loophole in their international dealings?

Tesla to charge for road trip 'leccy, promises it will cost less than petrol

That model only works as long as few people do it. It's not sustainable if everyone does it, there wouldn't be enough cars available to hire on holiday weekends.

cost less than the price of filling up a comparable gas car.

Until the governments get wise to it and add fuel duty to sales from supercharger points.

Coming soon as a line item way down the budget list.

Add it to the tab: ICO fines another spammer as unpaid bills mount

Re: The law is there for a reason, it’s to stop companies inundating people with unwanted messages

protects the shareholders against such things as fines against the company.

Limited companies protect the personal assets of the directors and shareholders from being seized to repay debts, but the courts can set aside the protected status of directors who knowingly indulge in fradulent or wrongful trading.

Re: The law is there for a reason, it’s to stop companies inundating people with unwanted messages

Maybe it should target the people running the companies instead?

Of course they should. If they do it once they might get away with an "I didn't realise" defence, and a fine.

Anyone who starts a second company to do the same thing after having been fined the first time should go straight to jail, with all their assets seized to pay the previous fine.

Brexit judgment could be hit for six by those crazy Supreme Court judges, says barrister

Re: Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Sorry to butt in again but I must correct this erroneous statement.

It is not an erroneous statement.

You may not have had a choice over whether we are in the EU due to your age, either not yet born or too young to vote in the referendum called by Harold Wilson in 1975. 67% voted in favour of staying in the EEC and 33% voted against.

That was a vote about the EEC, not the EU. Personally I'd be happy to remain in the EEC today, and think it's a great pity that it was unnecessarily transformed into the EU against the wishes of huge numbers of Eueopean citizens.

Denmark voted against the EU, and had to be asked again before the Danes gave the "right" answer. France only passed it by 51%, despite being one of the most pro-EEC countries. John Major signed the UK up to it without a referendum, which opinion polls showed he would lose. Even his own MPs were against it, he only got it passed by turning it into a confidence vote. Polls at the time showed that 70% of Spaniards wanted a referendum as well. When the EU treaties were amended by the treaty of Lisbon Tony Blair promised a referendum, then reneged on that when polls again showed that he would lose..

The UK voted to be in the EEC, it has never voted to be in the EU.

Re: Should I Stay or Should I Go? @ Codejunky

it was the British system that scuppered the Europlug because it was too easy to create a babykiller with a British socket outlet and a Europlug.

I'm curious, how would that happen?

The Schuko plugs are smaller because they aren't fused, but with most sockets being rated at 16A and fused (at the distribution panel) at 20A that creates a potential fire hazard when they are used with flexible appliance cords rated at 3A or 5A. That's a risk that the BS1363 systems doesn't have, assuming the plug has a correctly-rated fuse.

Schuko plugs and sockets are also much more flimsy than BS1363 ones. I've never had a standard UK socket pull out of the wall when unplugging a cable, it happens with Schuko. The lack of a switch on most Schuko sockets also makes it too easy to violate the rules about switching off appliances before disconnecting them. Plugs are not meant to be interrupters in the technical sense, and it's all too easy to draw an arc when unplugging a high-current appliance like an iron from a non-switched socket.

The figures are interesting. In the UK, according to the Office for National Statistics, 22 people died as a result of electrocution or fatal electric burns in 2010, while there were 20,403 accidental electrical fires in homes, resulting in 48 deaths

In France (same population as the UK) estimates are around 200 deaths due to electrocution each year, with 80,000 electrical fires.

Re: "The old EEC"

The "old EEC" was a political union, not merely an economic union. The most casual skimming of the 1957 Rome treaty sets out almost all of what we now recognise as the EU.

If that were true, why would we have needed Maastricht and Lisbon to modify it to create the EU?

A more in-depth reading makes it clear that is is first and foremost an economic union, with political agreement required only where it is necessary to achieve economic stability.

Some things do look a bit sad now:

Article 6.2

The institutions of the Community shall take care not to prejudice the internal and external financial stability of the Member States.

Ah, I bet Greece would laugh at that, if it weren't so unfunny.

Even the free movement rules are clearly based on employment and economic grounds:

It shall entail the right...

to accept offers of employment actually made;

to move freely within the territory of Member States for this purpose;

to stay in a Member State for the purpose of employment in accordance with the provisions governing the employment of nationals of that State laid down by law,

to remain in the territory of a Member State after having been employed in that State

All of which seem entirely reasonable.

Even the definition of "The Assembly [European Parliament]" only requires it to meet once a year, on the second Tuesday in March. It was clearly not intended to be a day-to-day controlling Parliament, just an oversight body.

It was only Maastricht which extended the economic provisions into the areas of criminal law and foreign policy, and extended the economic provisions into the creation of a single currency, none of which was necessary to maintain a sound trading community. Even then, in those few countries which actually got a vote on it it was either rejected it (Denmark), or barely scraped through (France).

Re: Should I Stay or Should I Go?

So what precisely is the effect of this EU 'straitjacket' on the UK? Clean beaches perhaps?

Read the rest of my post, if it's not too much trouble.

As for "easy business - tariff-free access to the most valuable markets on our doorstep", "access to large research funds" etc, those all existed before the EU, since they were part of previous agreements from before the EU, and/or outside the EU.

By "clean beaches" I presume you mean the "Blue Flag"? A moment's research would show that it's an international organization with over 60 members worldwide, and not an EU initiative.

But hey, let's not stop facts getting in the way of remainer FUD.

Re: Should I Stay or Should I Go? @ Codejunky

But before CE arrived, most products were sold without plugs

More FUD. It's nothing to do with CE, which only came into force in 1993. The requirement to fit approved BS1363 plugs to appliances in the UK comes from the "Plugs and Sockets etc. (Safety) Regulations 1987".

The reason it wasn't required before was that even up into the 1970s quite a few older houses still had the pre-BS1363 style of round pin plug (familiar to anyone from India, where they still use them) and leaving bare wires to which a plug had to be fitted was considered to be safer than having people use adapters.

Back then most electrical shops would fit an appropriate plug at the time of sale if asked.

Re: uncertainty and procrastination is doing more damage to the UK economy @Phil O'Sophical

So if the UK really is a member of the EEA, wholly separate to its EU membership, it totally changes all the arguments about 'Hard' and 'Soft' Brexit and whether the UK should become a member of the EFTA or EEA etc

Precisely. It would be ideal to clarify the question of whether leaving the EU voids our EEA membership before starting negotiations but, since the commission president has forbidden EU commissioners from having such discussions before Article 50 is invoked, this is difficult

I think some people confuse EEA with EFTA (just as they confuse EU with EEC). The UK was a founder member of EFTA, but had to give that up to join the EU and EEA. Any question of "rejoining" applies to EFTA, not the EEA, and Norway at least has expressed reservations since it may complicate the situation with existing EFTA trade agreements outside the EU. If the UK leaves the EU, and does not (or cannot) join EFTA, the issue of continued EEA membership then comes up. EEA rules say that only EEA and EFTA members can apply to join, they say nothing about whether leaving one of those groups requires immediate expulsion from the EEA.

Re: uncertainty and procrastination is doing more damage to the UK economy

The UK can't remain in the EEA, as the UK is not presently a member of the EEA; the EU, however, is a member of the EEA.

The EU is not a member of the EEA, since EEA members have to be states and the EU is not a state.

The UK is a member of the EEA because it is a member of the EU. There are also three non-EU members of the EEA: Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.

Whether leaving the EU results in automatic expulsion from the EEA is still unclear and under discussion.

Re: Should I Stay or Should I Go? @ Codejunky

How damned surprised should one be if there are regulations when, on one side you have manufacturers who cheat as much as they can, and on the other side you have consumers without any ability to know what they buy or eat or take or use and so on.

What a bloody mess you Brits have made for your self for so dubious reasons

Do you have the slightist idea how insulting and offensive that sort of generalization is? Every country in Europe has flaws, it wasn't Britain that was lying about horsemeat in ready meals or furniture-store meatballs. It wasn't a British manufacturer that was cheating on car emissions. It wasn't a British manufacturer making breast implants out of industrial silicone, etc.

Put your own countries in order before lecturing others.

Re: Should I Stay or Should I Go?

can someone explain to me in simple terms, what specific benefits britain would might or will gain by exiting the EU?. to me United is a far better idea

The EU is a one-size-fits-nobody straitjacket. It attempts to create a single framework for political, economic and fiscal union that applies to all 28 countries. Those countries are so very different in political and social viewpoints that it simply cannot work properly. You end up aiming for the lowest common denominator, mediocrity, with as much ambiguity as possible to prevent it collapsing. Of course, some people are happy to tolerate mediocrity as long as it gives them an easy life, but most are learning that it's a short term solution which can't support itself.

The Euro zone is a clear example. Those countries that entered it have (with the notable exception of Germany, which controls it) high unemployment, close to zero growth, and little monetary stability. Even the architects of the single currency now recognize that it was a mistake to rush it, and that it will fail without rigid fiscal union. That union is unpalatable to a majority of EU members.

It's clear that fiscal policy that works for, say, Germany and the UK will never work for Italy and Greece. Social policy that works for Sweden won't work for the UK or the Netherlands. Economic policy that works for France won't work for UK or the new ex-eastern bloc members. Politics vary widely, France may have it's left- and right-wing parties, but even their right is to the left of most British parties. The gulf is too wide.

The countries are simply too different in their economic, political and fiscal preferences for them all to fit into one framework, yet without that common framework you can't have a political union with it's own parliament and laws. Just look at the Apple/Ireland issues as one of the problems.

The old EEC (the "common market") worked because it recognized the differences and just created a level playing field where those differences could be allowed for, even the most controversial part, the CAP, sort-of worked. It was an economic union that mostly worked. The EU is a political union, and that cannot work, but the people who run it can't accept that, and cannot agree to go back to a union that did work.

Re: Parliament must vote

Based on the current polls and state of Labour/UKIP/LibDem opposition, an early election would benefit the Tories and effectively provide a second referendum to validate Mays current position while swaying MPs who were unsure how their electorate felt.

I'm not sure you could take the recent polls as valid indicators. They might be close for a true "general" election, but an election that was effectively a single-issue contest on whether Parliament should respect the referendum result is exactly the kind of curved ball that makes polls useless.

After all, if you translate the referendum result into constituencies, instead of a simple headcount, you get around 70% Leave, almost all in England. In the European elections, which are pretty much a single-issue vote, UKIP does much better, mostly neck & next with the Tories. A similar outcome in a general election, from pissed-off Brexit voters, could completely change the Westminster map.

Fresh Euro Patent Office drama: King Battistelli fires union boss

Re: Exactly what does he know about the members of the Admin Council?

Only an agreement of all EU member states could depose him.

The EPO predates the EU by almost 20 years, and has 38 members, EU members + many others.

James Dyson's new startup: A university for engineers that doesn't suck

+1 for Cragside. Good gardens as well, for the non-engineeering visitors.

British defence minister refuses to rule out F-35A purchase

Re: A is actually not a bad piece of kit

It's advantages come in low observable/stealth

Security through obscurity, again?

Brexit may not mean Brexit at all: UK.gov loses Article 50 lawsuit

Re: Remoaners on el reg??

Brexit isn't about returning power to Westminster. It's about xenophobia.

No, it is not, and no amount of whingeing about that by people like you who cannot understand the concerns many of us have about the disastrous economic and bankrupt political ideas of the EU is going to change that. You may want to think it's all about xenophobia, but that says more about your attitudes to the issues than about ours.

Some people undoubtedly voted for Brexit because they are xenophobes. Some people undoubtedly voetd remain because they are lazy lardarses who prefer an easy life in their comfort zone. Don't assume that everyone made their minds up for such trivial reasons, it's wrong, and it's offensive.

Re: As I understand it

What are you talking about?

Discussions, as I clearly said, not negotiations.

Article 50 lays down the rules for the actual negotiations, but to ensure that no friendly pre-negotiation discussons take place the commission president has made it clear that he won't tolerate other EU representatives having Brexit talks.His official statement was “I have forbidden Commissioners from holding discussions with representatives from the British government – by presidential order".

Re: We have had over a decade of this utopia EU and yet we voted to leave

I have had 43 years of the EU (I was 6 in 1972)

Sorry, no, you've had 23 years in the EEC, and then 20 in the EU. The EU wasn't created until the Maastricht treaty of 1996.

If we'd still been in the EEC I am pretty sure the vote would have gone the other way, indeed there would probably never have been a referendum. The EEC wasn't perfect, but it was an economic entity that solved a real problem and gave economic stability to W. Europe. Even Maggie Thatcher recognised that staying in and fighting to change it was the best course of action.

The EU, on the other hand, is a political entity that answered no need, and was created by empire-building politicians purely to satisfy their own vanity. It has severely damaged the economies of most of its members, and is directly responsible for ever-increasing tensions between countries and the nationalist tendencies that are appearing in them.

Might it be this article that gave you that idea?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/20/northern-ireland-unionists-republicans-brexit-backers

Nope, I hadn't read that. I was just going by the actual results from tne constituencies, where the pro-union ones voted leave (except for N. Down, which is very "home counties" in outlook) and most of the border ones, with the SDLP/Sinn Fein MPs voted stay.

Sinn Fein weren't advocating leave, just dissidents.

SF has always been vociferously anti-EU, but no, they didn't advocate voting leave. From their point of view, a "stay" vote in NI with Brexit for GB would be an ideal pro-united Ireland position.

Re: I hate to quote David Davis, but this "will of the people" shite

This BREXIT vote will be effective for the foreseeable with no chance of reversal and even if we wanted to reverse it, these things move at glacial pace.

The same is true, of course, of the vote to join the EU in the first place.

Oh wait, Major & Blair never even gave us one.

Re: As I understand it

I really wouldn't get too worked up over rumours of Hard or Soft Brexits.

Brexit negotiations are not a case of all sides working for the best all-round solution, the EU has a vested interested in ensuring that no county can leave the EU on good terms which would let it be successful afterwards. In many ways these negotiations are like a game of poker where the UK player has to keep his cards face up all the time. Much as we'd like to get the warm fuzzy feeling that the government is sharing all its ideas with us, they can't do that since it would mean exposing their negotiating position to their adversaries.

Since Juncker has forbidden his vassals from having independent discussions, the best thing the UK can do is float all kinds of ideas to see what the reaction is. Leak a rumour that we're going for "hard" brexit, and see how the other countries respond. Few politicians will be able to resist commenting. Then leak the idea that maybe "soft" is better, see how that goes down.

I wouldn't be surprised to see some carefully stage-managed arguing, perhaps arrange that a hard- and a soft- partisan have a nice public bitching session, not too serious, to make it look like the whole negotiating team is split.

At the end of the day you probably just want to keep in mind: "What would Sir Humphrey do?"

Re: As I understand it

We do not need another recession.

Very true, and the best possible reason for leaving the EU as fast as possible.

Re: Arithmetic needed

0.722 * 0.519 = 0.374718 so we can round that up to 37.5% or three out of 8 of the electorate.

That meant the other 5 did not.

Or to look at it the other way:

0.722 * 0.481 = 0.347282, so we can round that up to 34.7% or three out of 8 of the electorate voted to stay, the other 5 did not.

And that is before you consider that a sizeable proportion of the Brexiters were elderly white people and that demographic is a shrinking percentage.

Far from shrinking, I think you'll find it's actually an increasing percentage all over Europe, which is why pension systems are in such trouble.

And most areas of the UK - outside of London, Scotland and NI - voted to leave

Even in NI and Scotland it was close, 50-something percent to stay. In NI most of the Unionist areas voted to leave (despite their MPs being remainers) and most of the border-area nationalist constituencies voted to stay (despite Sinn Fein being anti-EU).

More interesting than the question of how the vote would go is what would happen if the vote went against accepting the referendum, and that triggered a confidence motion. The Tories have only a slim majority, would enough pro-Leave Tory MPs vote against a confidence motion, or abstain, to force an election? I think that's a likely outcome, so much so that May might feel it better to call an election right away.

And then what? I don't for a moment believe that a single-issue party like UKIP would get enough votes to make a difference in a normal election, but the results of the European elections show how well they can do in a single-issue contest. If the government falls on a Brexit confidence vote, the next election would effectively be a single-issue one - can people trust Parliament to respect their expressed wishes. It could leave UKIP with at least a plurality of English seats, and holding the balance of power. That's not a stable situation.

I have a feeling that many of the apparently pro-EU MPs (and probably May herself) have a sneaking gut-level liking for Brexit anyway, they just didn't want to publicly call for it and have to face the consequences. Now that it's here anyway I wouldn't be that surprised to see many of those MPs choose to vote in favour of invoking Article 50, even if they have to hide behind "supporting the will of their constituents" to explain their change of heart.

Re: There's one bit of good news though

There's a lot more people with dual citizenship in the UK now because of a potential Brexit.

A lot?

Taking the Irish example as the most commonly-sited one:

In August there were 6,710 requests, compared to ~3000 the previous August

In September there were 7,518 applications from the UK compared to 3,431 in 2015.

That's an extra 8K or so. Out of 60m population. Even out of the estimated 2m who are actually eligible it's still hardy "a lot".

52% of the people who voted chose to leave, which is around 34% of the electorate.

Only 35% of the people who voted in the last election voted Tory, yet they formed a government.

Around 70% of the regions voted to Leave (300,out of 399, IIRC), which is a considerably larger vote in favour than any government has had in the past 50 years.

Stiff upper lips and sun glasses: the Chancellor bets on Brexit feeling

Re: So to clarify...

I don't, however, believe that most of those who voted out did so in an informed and rational way.

I do, based on the ones I've spoken to. Not met anyone who voted to leave on the basis of "Poles out".

Welcome to post Brexit

Blimey, those two years went by quickly.

Re: So to clarify...

most will have ... had their minds poisoned

Ah, the tired old "I don't understand why they did it, so they must be mad or gullible" theory. Of course, it goes without saying that you are too smart to have been gulled by years of media and EU propaganda, yes?

Doesn't wash, sorry. Those of us who actually put the effort into understanding the situation are well aware of the pros and cons of Brexit, and are capable of understanding that the long-term implosion of the EU is something we're better away from, for political and financial reasons. And I speak as a long-term British expat who, unlike many of the remoaners here, actually knows what it's like to live outside the UK, in other EU countries.

Hm, is that a minefield? Let me just throw my magic bomb-sniffing spinach over there

There are drawbacks to using plants as chemical sensors, however.

Like the need to plough the minefield to plant them?