* Posts by Ilmarinen

257 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Mar 2014

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US Congress blew the whistle on tax-dodging Apple, claims Europe

Ilmarinen
Mushroom

So much bleating about "avoiding" taxes...

...so few bleats about why taxes are so high.

Dwarf planet Ceres has a watery secret: An 11 mile wide ice volcano

Ilmarinen
Headmaster

Re: planet?

Not dwarf planet - PORG: Planet Of Restricted Growth

NASA tried turning lost spacecraft STEREO-B off and on again... but it didn't work. True story

Ilmarinen

Re: "...their orbit drifted further away to the other side of the Sun..."

Yes... and I thought "Having the Sun wedged in between made communication with Earth nearly impossible as the solar wavelengths make the environment too noisy to pick up signals from Earth" showed a real deep understanding of all the science stuff too. Maybe just a Rocket Wo/man?

(but we do like SPAAACE, so carry on)

Email proves UK boffins axed from EU research in Brexit aftermath

Ilmarinen
Stop

Oh dear, how sad, never mind.

Looked at the web site: seems to be offering free money to any "research" based only on the criterion that there are two or three collaborators in different European institutions*: Public Teat - Suck Here.

I think I'd prefer my EU taxes spaffed on something a bit more targeted - you know, to something potentially useful? Or maybe spent locally and not sent to the EU at all?

*NB: it specifies EU "or associated" countries - so you can be an EEA state (not in the EU), or one of dozens of others (see their list) and still get to suck on that teat, if that's your academic income stream.

So, Brexit not to blame, just petty politics ;-)

Captain Piccard's planet-orbiting solar aircraft in warped drive drama

Ilmarinen

Re: Oh come on...

Quite - but I don't expect it will be "voluntary" for the plebs upon who it is "voluntarily" inflicted by the great and the good.

cf. Blighty's Climate Change Act - voluntarily voted in by MPs, with the consequent costs inflicted on the poor (but with nice subsidies to the rich).

The Great Brain Scan Scandal: It isn’t just boffins who should be ashamed

Ilmarinen
Coat

MODERATION (Re: Phrenology)

OK: As you say. My mistake.

Must be some other reason for the delay that I've noticed with various articles & commentards. In this case 18 mins, but often hours. Any thoughts?

(2110 UTC)

Ilmarinen
Holmes

Re: Phrenology

Indeed - Matt Briggs (he of "torturing the data to produce tiny P values") has a nice "told you so" piece on this - http://wmbriggs.com/post/19230

Scientism - so modern, and so much better than religion or philosophy ;-)

(presses "Submit" @ 2040 UTC, expecting long delay 'cos Andrew always does MODERATION)

PM resigns as Britain votes to leave EU

Ilmarinen
Stop

We need to educate ourselves

Start with the Flexcit plan (linked by Andrew in the article).

There has been so much ignorance, lies and FUD from both sides of the official campaigns (including our dear BBC). How many here have actually read the text of Cameron's "deal"? How many understand the difference between the Europe, the EU and the Single Market (and the significance of the differences? How many have any understanding of how the EU actually works?

I'm just delighted that enough of the Demos voted against what our ruling elites said we should do that we have some small chance to move to a better world out of the EU. I expect however that we will be told that it was a "protest vote", offered some pretend "reforms" and told to vote again, as were the Irish.

Democracy where only the "correct" answer is allowed is no democracy at all, and what is in the interest of the incumbent elites is not necessarily what is best for the country or the people in it.

Norway might insist on zero-emission vehicles by 2025

Ilmarinen
Stop

Re: Zero-emission vehicles

But, nice though they are, they are not.

You are expending extra energy, you need to eat to replace that. Even if all you eat is Organic (TM), it still gets produced using tractors powered by diesel and delivered by trucks powered by diesel (and if by bio-diesel, well that gets produced by tractors, using diesel, and chemical fertilizers, etc...)

Sure, a bicycle is a low speed/low power vehicle so low emissions (maybe 100W average), but human food conversion efficiency is fairly low (25%?) and Organic (TM) vegetables not very energy dense (so delivery energy cost/efficiency low).

Maybe a moped would cause less harm to Gaia?

And maybe be grateful for the fossil fuels that have lifted mankind from the squalid poverty of what was (a short) life before the agrarian and industrial revolutions?

Ilmarinen

Re: Political deals...but if they do

Err - "subsidised" generally means giving someone money, usually with the money being taken from someone else. For example, my neighbor Jim gets a nice (for him) subsidy on the electricity that his solar panels generate. The money comes from the electricity bill of other people, including poor people who can't afford solar panels.

When people talk about fossil fuels being "subsidised" they mean that the company extracting said fossil fuels are let off some of the taxes that they would otherwise pay. Taking less money off someone is not the same as giving someone money. There is an argument to be had about the value of externalities, but to say that fossil fuels are subsidised is stretching the use of language :-)

Google is the EU Remain campaign's secret weapon

Ilmarinen
Happy

It's #5 when I just looked

I Googled and got:

Vote Leave site

News on EU Referendum

HMG's EU Referendum site

BBC "All you need to know about the EU Referendum" (1)

EUReferendum.com

Might be a case of the Striesland effect?

Whether you are pro or anti Brexit, or undecided, I would recommend that you have a look at Dr North's site. I can imagine that he might be a "difficult" person to work with, but in this largely truth and vision free "campaign" he's one of the few with a handle on the facts and with a developed exit plan of how to leave the EU safely, without the threatened Fear-Uncertainty-Doom, and why the future would be better outside.

(1) Aunty Beep of course knows best and so has done your thinking for you ;-)

Flinging Slack at them won't get team talking – senior Etsy engineer

Ilmarinen
FAIL

WTF?

"Bla, bla, bla", went the article.

Folks looked at each other, wondering "WTF was that all about?" and "did they *pay* someone to write that?"

And, by strange coincidence, we had an invite to "Slack" today from a client. Sadly, our network security policies won't allow us to accept. Perhaps we could use something else instead? Maybe... uuh... I know - email?

Pop goes the weasel! Large Hadron Collider blown up by critter chomping 66kV cable

Ilmarinen
Coat

Veezels

Was told by a German colleague that the nasty little critters also chew through brake pipes of your car in the time it takes you to get your shopping. Had actually seen one sneak under a car and emerge shortly afterwards (presumably laughing evilly to itself).

Our native UK stoats are of course stoatily different in their habits and never attempt such sabotage.

Panama Papers graph database cracked open for world+dog

Ilmarinen

"curated information"

We'll have to wait till someone leaks the full data set to see if there is any truth in the suggestion that the data released so far has been slanted at attacking "nasty right wing" sorts while avoiding folks acceptable to Guardian readers...

Obama London visit prompts drone no-fly zone

Ilmarinen
Mushroom

In the words of the old ditty...

... If I had the wings of a sparrow

and I had the arse of a crow...

And wouldn't it be dreadful if the good "little people" of London were to celebrate the great visitation with the release of many small balloons and much kite flying ;-)

Windows 10 with Ubuntu now in public preview

Ilmarinen
Happy

Woo Hoo !

That's great !

Now, how easy is it to get rid of the windows bit after you've got Ubuntu installed?

(I've got W10 at work, & it's a bit pants c/w Mint at home)

FBI Director defends iPhone 5C unlock tool that's obviously going to leak into wrong hands

Ilmarinen
Coat

Trust in me, only me ...

"people should not worry about the FBI's actions, he said, since every agent receives training in the importance of due process and respecting individual privacy rights."

So don't worry, everything's all right. Nothing to see, move along little people.

(I'll only be a few seconds - just checking your coat to make sure your phone is safe from terrorists)

How Microsoft copied malware techniques to make Get Windows 10 the world's PC pest

Ilmarinen

Re: Enough is enough!

@ Mystic Megabyte

No - you were right first time: taken out back and shot.

The best procedure IMO is that advocated by my old primary school teacher in the 1960s: they should be "shot at dawn for a fortnight"

(RIP Miss Gould)

Ilmarinen
Happy

I've (mostly) avoided it...

... by switching to Linux (Mint), back when they stopped support for XP. And very happy with it.

I have had W10 inflicted on me with the new PC I've just bought for a job at work. It's a bit of a disappointment really, in a number of ways that I won't bore you with here. I expect that you could tinker with it to get a half decent "user experience" - but life's too short.

Reprogrammble routers axed by TP-Link as FCC bans custom firmware

Ilmarinen
WTF?

Re: But it's my router, I've bought it

We are in Clockwork Orange territory here.

Yes, he should be *able* to do whatever he likes with all these things.

Should any of what he *choses* to do be illegal then he should be liable for that. But the availability of choice, to do wrong or to do right or to do nothing, is freedom.

And in this case what is proposed by the FCC is just stupid and out of proportion to any likely harm.

State should run power firm spam database, says... competition watchdog

Ilmarinen
Unhappy

Re: On BBC R4 this morning

AC: would you go to work for no pay? Then why should any company work for no profit?

It's not "cheapness above everything" - the convoluted hoops that the government imposes to subsidize expensive and unreliable "renewables", and to penalize cheap power generation ensures that. They have now so badly skewed the market that they have to subsidize parks of *diesel* backup generators under the STOR scheme to stop the lights going out. And all the subsidies are paid by our electricity bills and taxes.

Our dear leaders need to unwind the current insane "policy". Atlas Shrugged was not meant to be a manual of how to run a railway (or power generation or a country).

Cameron co-opts UK mobile industry for EU Remain campaign

Ilmarinen

Re: David Cameron... ... is starting to piss me off now.

@ John Crisp "Council of Ministers is where it's really at... He negotiated with them"

Factually wrong, I'm afraid.

He was at a meeting of the European Council (Heads of State + Tusk + Juncker) which is an EU institution but has no formal powers.

The "Council of Ministers" (actually "Council of the European Union") is part of the legislature. Similar name, different thing entirely.

Read the "deal": it says it is "a Decision of the Heads of State or Government, meeting within the European Council" - i.e. not even a decision of the European Council, but just some of the folks who happen also to be council members, and who can't bind the EU anything, nor their successors if an election replaces any of them.

Think - why would they do that? Perhaps to create the pretense of a deal where none exists? Not even a little bit suspect?

And the text says that it will need treaty change - several years of negotiation, ratification by all 28 states. So it ain't going to happen.

You are also confusing the EU with Europe - they are not the same. I too am European and proud to be, proud to speak (badly) several European languages, and with friends in several EU and EFTA countries.

And I do care whether I pay for beer with Euros or Pounds, because the Euro has been one of the things that has caused the piss poor economic performance of the EU. If we stay there will be nothing but ever more centralization, regulation, bureaucracy and stagnation. We need to be out.

We have available a low risk exit route using Article 50 and EFTA as the first steps. We can be in the EEA "common market" without being part of the "ever closer union" political suprastate that is the EU.

Let's do it.

Ilmarinen
Unhappy

Re: David Cameron... ... is starting to piss me off now.

Yes, the man who established his "Green" credentials by hugging a husky, and "vetoed" that "treaty" (when no treaty existed) now brings you a "deal" that isn't a deal and isn't worth the pdf it's written on.

See text here: http://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/meetings/european-council/2016/02/EUCO-Conclusions_pdf/ and note the promises (weak though they are) are not even being made by "The EU" but by a bunch of politico "Heads of State" (*not* an EU body) with no power to bind the EU. And even if they could, it's dependent on treaty change and ratification by all 28 states. Fat chance of that.

And the same David Cameron is using his civil servants, paid for by the "demos" (us), to campaign for a remain vote. Hardly a fair or neutral party I would say - and why any UK politician would campaign for giving their powers and our country's sovereignty to a foreign supranational state is frankly beyond me.

See leavehq.com for more info...

Ilmarinen

Re: I'd be more inclined to listen to companies

@ JimmyPage "that paid UK tax" ...

err... Does the Beeb pay tax?

I thought we just gave it a huge bung, which it spaffs on peddling its "narratives"

Pity that it's so difficult to avoid listening to it (and paying for the wretched thing).

Ilmarinen

Re: BBC bias

Yes, they are shameless.

And no mention of how this letter was got up by a No 10 civil servant, campaigning for Remain, at taxpayers expense (and Call-me-Dave said this was on his instructions!)

SpaceShipTwo ready to slip the surly bonds of Earth for Virgin Galactic

Ilmarinen
Go

what actual use is it?

None at all.

But it is a beautiful thing.

Paid for by people's own money.

And I guess that you are not a flyer, diver, poet, artist or Sci-Fi fan ?

Feds look left and right for support – and see everyone backing Apple

Ilmarinen
Black Helicopters

Forced Labour

I'm curious that one aspect of this seems to have so little traction, and that is this: the court is ordering Apple to do something, despite Apple not having broken any law, and Apple not having the right to decline. That's forced labor - slavery.

Now, if a company breaks the law, it can rightly be forced to carry out certain tasks - for example, to pay compensation. But Apple has not broken the law; it's not even directly involved, just a third party to the FBI's investigation of some dead terrorist.

To use the locksmith analogy: the locksmith is to be forced to make a skeleton key for a safe that he made and sold, quite legally, to someone who later did something illegal. The locksmith does not want to do this, for whatever reason - shouldn't it be his right to decline, even if we disagree?

Seems to me that if the FBI can succeed in this, then there is nothing stopping a court from ordering any company or anyone to do anything that it deems necessary or expedient.

I don't think that would be a wise path to follow.

FBI iPhone unlock order reaction: Trump, Rubio say no to Apple. EFF and Twitter say yes

Ilmarinen
Stop

Re: Locksmith

The police are not seeking to "employ" a locksmith.

Employment is a voluntary contract between free parties, and the locksmith has the right to say "no".

This is seeking to *force* the locksmith to do the opening.

The locksmith has broken no law, and is a third party in the investigation.

Forcing someone to do something against their will, when they have broken no law is, in essence, Slavery.

Ilmarinen
Unhappy

Re: What the law says...

"Stop going about your business, do what I tell you to do, even though you've broken no law"

Isn't that also called "Slavery"?

Why Tim Cook is wrong: A privacy advocate's view

Ilmarinen
Big Brother

Absolutely Not

"the judge is absolute within their rights to call on Apple to break that encryption"

Absolutely Not. The court is there to enforce the law. What is being suggested is that the court can force a third party to assist it in whatever way it deems necessary. And the third party is not allowed to say "sorry, I don't want to help you” nor to refuse to jump through any hoops demanded.

Instead of being left to carry on their own business, and despite having broken no law, they must do whatever the court directs.

Not good.

Remember Netbooks? Windows 10 makes them good again!

Ilmarinen

Re: Linux this and Linux that

Nope, point not missed:

"Back in November 2013 I therefore tried to figure out how to extend the life of my own Netbook."

(reports that Win8 didn't work)

"That Netbook's been gathering dust since that 2013 story, but a few weeks back I found myself in need of a spare computer to serve as a data mule carrying data to the cloud."

(so put Win10 on it)

Silly fellow, if he'd extended it's life with a Linux, like us smug gits, he could have been using it all that time ;-)

Ilmarinen

Re: Madness

Agree.

Bought a Win7 netbook a few years ago. It limped along soooo slooooly it was an embarrassment.

Duel boot it into Mint + xfce and, Presto, a neat little machine.

Lights out for Space Vehicle Number 23: UK smacked when US sat threw GPS out of whack

Ilmarinen
Mushroom

Naaa - don't worry...

...it'll be fine, until the next Carrington Event

Google UK coughs up £130m back taxes. Is it enough?

Ilmarinen

Re: Oh Register, how far hast thou fallen

Oooh touchy ! Noticed that in a few replies - is that part of the new socially conscious El Reg thing?

Parsing approximately correct (although it was parasitoid, not parasite).

We obviously disagree about whether it is daft to express "outrage" at companies not-breaking the law.

Ilmarinen
Unhappy

Oh Register, how far hast thou fallen

I occasionally nip over to the Grauniad, just to check that it is *still* churning out bollocks like this.

And so now with El Reg.

Much squeaking amongst the (increasingly AC) Commentards, very few asking why the parasitoid Governments need to bleed off so much tax, from everyone, but many "outraged" at (entirely legal) tax avoidance.

Where have the bright ones gone?

The Register's entirely serious New Year's resolutions for 2016

Ilmarinen
Pirate

Paging Page, Worstall, Orlowski

Somebody earlier suggested a fork of El Reg, away from this current 'ere thing and back to wot we know and luv - let's put it to the Commentardiat...

Ayes - upvote

Nays - downvote

Ilmarinen

@GrantN

Worstall has a blog and links to other stuff he writes: http://www.timworstall.com/

Don't know about Page - anyone?

Ilmarinen
WTF?

Re: we plan to be a big part of the prosperity

What DropBear said.

And, reading the article again, it's like El Reg is being replaced by a not very good clone, but one that has been on all the PC training courses and is now attempting to crawl up its own corporate arse.

Just my 2p.

Lettuce-nibbling veggies menace Mother Earth

Ilmarinen
Holmes

@Pompous Git

"To date I have never heard of occupational exposure to tomatoes being a concern."

From which I deduce that you are no thespian Sir !

ISS 'naut trio return to snowy terra firma

Ilmarinen
Thumb Up

I have seen things...

I am so envious of these folks. More power to them. I wish it were me.

Ceres' salty history hints at bright spot origin

Ilmarinen
Boffin

Churnalisum

"You mean Magnesium sulphate hexahydrate...........easier to understand"

I'd just checked the NASA link to see what they called it. They wrote:

"Ceres has more than 130 bright areas, and most of them are associated with impact craters. Study authors, led by Andreas Nathues at Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Göttingen, Germany, write that the bright material is consistent with a type of magnesium sulfate called hexahydrite. A different type of magnesium sulfate is familiar on Earth as Epsom salt."

I guess the Pax Plank bods are actual Boffins, so they must just have pitched their press release to arts graduates types. And their words just got parroted here in the best traditions of "churnalisum".

Enraged Brits demand Donald Trump UK ban

Ilmarinen
Big Brother

Re: Jeez

AC bleated "I've seen constables quoted that there are areas where they take care but not any statement that it's because of Muslims." A voice at the back piped up "well they wouldn't, would they? Even if it were true. Nobody wants to be accused of a 'HATE CRIME' and lose their job!"

Walmart spied on workers' Tweets, blogs before protests

Ilmarinen

Re: self-checkout lanes.

Yes, I despise them too, for the reasons that you do.

But I'm wrong to do so, for various reasons laid out by Tim Worstall (now sadly and ironically "laid off" by this rag).

No doubt El Reg can replace his wisdom by something syndicated for free from The Conversation or whatever...

VW's Audi suspends two engineers in air pollution cheatware probe

Ilmarinen
FAIL

Oh do Fcuk off

El Reg bleats " poisonous nitrogen oxide pumped out by the cars"

Quite so - poisonous depends on dose - and which oxide were you talking about?

If this were a significant problem we would be having to swerve around the bodies. Cars (and stuff in general) these days emit hardly anything compared with times before. Just the regulations have become stupidly draconian.

And by retailing guff like this (without the wit that one would expect of something pretending to be a technical rag) you simply reinforce the green activists' "truthiness" and regulators' thirst for more regulation.

So 4/10 - see me.

And yes, we do like our efficient, low emission, diesel cars

DS5: Vive la différence ... oh, and throw away the Citroën badge

Ilmarinen
Meh

Re: DS? No not a DS

I agree.

Citroën was always a company that produced different, interesting and well engineered cars. From the Traction Avant, through the flat twins/fours, hydraulic suspension, early turbodiesels...

This is just meh, and Citroën cars are pretty much like any other these days. I'll probably end up with something from another marque when my current old C5 dies :-(

Old tech, new battles: Inside F-Secure’s formidable Faraday cage

Ilmarinen
FAIL

Woop ! Woop ! BS Alert !

“It’s rated as impenetrable to anything up to the grade of military radar,” said Sullivan.

What rating would that be then?

Any particular radar RF band ?

How does it know the radar is "military"

Yeh, quite so.

(Comment: I can understand BBC, newspapers, etc retailing nonsense like this - but El Reg?)

Volkswagen: 800,000 of our cars may have cheated in CO2 tests

Ilmarinen
FAIL

Re: Good for them !

@ Loyal Commenter

That elevated CO2 is harmful to plants would explain why my commercial grower friends sometimes run heaters just to increase CO2 ?

IIRC, Drax supplied CO2 to Snaith growers for glasshouse CO2 enrichment. Apparently, 1000 ppm is a good figure. Maybe you weren't paying attention in your Climate "Science" degree?

Probably several % is not so good, but I don't know, and we are not talking about extreme levels.

I made no comment about NOx.

Ilmarinen
FAIL

Re: @llmarinen: Good for them !

@ Jay

CO2 is not pollution.

You breath in 0.04% v/v in the atmosphere and breath out about 4% because of metabolism.

CO2 does not cause lung disease.

I have no worries about kids/adults/animals breathing CO2 at typical atmospheric levels or at any level we are likely to see because "Carbon".

Ilmarinen
Pint

Good for them !

Stupid regulations deserve circumvention.

Who wants a car loaded up with "environmental" s**t that goes like a neutered* slug?

And (deep horror) CO2 is actually Good** for us.

Tumbrels for the lawyers, thats wot I sez !

* Yes, I know slugs are heamaphrodite - that just makes it worse ;-)

** Feeds crops, maybe forestalls ice ages :-)

Now VW air-pollution cheatware 'found in Audis and Porsches'

Ilmarinen
Stop

Cheatware?

Apologies for being late to the lynching - but have we established that anyone "cheated" ?

Or did they just comply with whatever stupid regulations that the politicos/big greens diktated, and then reverted to normal outside mandatedtestland?

A bit like politicians expences - or worse than that (Jim) ?

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