Posts by LucreLout

NO MORE DOUBLE IRISH, thunders Dublin. Erm, from 2020 that is

Re: But the good news...

"There will be a new rule, under a different name that will circumvent it."

There already is. It's just not in Ireland.

Stop ROBOT exploitation, cry striking Foxconn workers

Unfortunately many of the jobs being done today aren't real jobs. More than 1 in 4 people that work at all, work for the public sector. Given that fewer than half of the NHS has any form of medical qualification (I have and I'm not a doc or a nurse and don't work in medicine), it is plain to see that many of the people working there should be replaced by automation - in essence, non-jobs. The DVLA being a prime example of governmental make work - everything it does is computerised now, so there's simply no reason to keep the Swansea HQ.

Only about 30% of the current population work in either front line public sector roles or the private sector. They have to support the reamining 70% (children, retirees, and back office or state created non-jobs). As those roles are automated, tax reveues will plummet, forcing job losses on the non-productive roles, and cut backs to the level of support offered by the state.

Sure, new roles will be created, I made that point in my first post on this thread, but they are unlikely to be created at the pace at which they are lost plus the pace of increase in working age people. The new roles are also unlikely to be renumerated at anything like the rate of the old automated roles - see Amazon, Starbucks, and zero hours contracts elsewhere.

Re: A dark future?

"As the cost of production goes down the costs of the goods also become cheaper if robots are producing this stuff will we get to the point where things can almost be given away?"

Life, sadly, does not work like that. The cost of an iPhone is set at the maximum price the market will bear. It has next to zero relationship to the cost of production.

"If automation and AI do kill work maybe we will get the golden age of leisure promised in 1960's"

If they killed work unilaterally, overnight, then yes we might. Unfortunately that isn't realistic, so what we're likely to see is gradually rising unemployment taking hold globally, straining welfare arrangements as those with no possible working future are forced to give up. It's likely they will be disenfranchised, angry, and must eventually become the majority.

"to get there we would have to embrace the concept of socialism in a big way"

Socialism doesn't work, even if everything is free. To get there we'd need a new system that blended aspects of communism and capitalism, along with strict birth controls to limit the population. It'll be a bit Shawshank redemption for a while - we are where we are, whats over the hill is better, but we have to crawl through 100 yards of shit to get to it.

Re: A dark future?

"Well consider this: if automation has provided for all the basic needs for a healthy life, what is the purpose of work?"

You're presupposing that those who own the automated production will simply hand the product to others for free. You're also assuming that full automation happens without a transition period in which many people lose their jobs but still require money to buy things. Neither is likely to be the case.

"We have the inbred notion of lazy benefit seekers because they are competing for finite resources with people that choose to work. If there is no competition, then there is no problem."

The problem is one of transition. We can't get from where we are to post scarcity wihtout a lot of people losing out along the way. Losing your job as a haulage driver at age 50, because they've automated the trucks & busses, will be no fun. You'll still need to pay bills along the way, but you'll no longer have a means to obtain an income. So now what do you do? Waiting 30 years for automation to move society into post-scarcity isn't going to work for you.

"if I could give up this job tomorrow and go on a cruise for 6 months I'd jump at the chance. Am I wrong to want this?"

No, but the issue facing you is more likely to be that you lose your job today, and can't get another, and can't afford the cruise because they aren't free yet. Yo also can't afford to pay your mortgage or eat as money won't have been abolished yet.

"if I didn't need to work, then I certainly wouldn't spend the remaining years of my life vegetating in front of the TV. There's just so much meaningful stuff to do."

Anyone who has been to China during National Day (week) will be familiar with the kind of problem you would face trying to do stuff if nobody had to be at work.

A dark future?

Automation worries me deeply, despite the fact that I spend a great deal of my professional time automating tasks and low end offshored roles.

The next 100 years are likely to see AI, advanced 3D printing, and robotics replacing people in a substantial number of roles. That may sound a long time away, but your children may have 50 years to work, their children 50 after that. It is likely that the next 20 will see a continued and significant reduction in menial work. The first AI to reach 100 IQ points will be smarter than half the population, so they will be unable to compete for knowledge work. The cost of robotics will drop significantly, and combined with 3D printing of complex parts will remove many manufacturing roles, even those in the developing economies. The developments will be incremental, with the occasional significant leap forward. Simply being more intelligent won’t help for long, as the comparable IQ of AI climbs ever onwards leaving ever more humans unable to keep up. With autonomous vehicle development, any 20 year old embarking on a career in haulage is likely to face disappointment before their late 40s, just as it becomes most difficult to start another career.

Which of today’s careers can be considered immune to automation? Creativity may be harder to code, but that is unlikely to hold out for very long when you can spin up an AI at Google for a week to write you a symphony or design a piece of artwork that arrives on your door from the 3D printer. Sex workers may find their careers the last to be replaced, but which father can honestly advise their child to enter such a business? Obviously new roles will emerge as technology progresses, but it seems, based upon the past, that these may not emerge in the same quantity as those roles being replaced plus the increase in population size.

The human race needs to start taking steps to mitigate the problems coming down the pipeline. We’re not going to have any practical use for half the people we have in 50 years, so we need to move to a model of smaller families and population reduction now, before we get there. Instead of paying endless child benefit, we need to start taxing those with children more on a per child basis, and adjust that in line with predictable advances in technology and automation. It won’t be popular, but the alternative is that social unrest or war kills the balance of those we did not need.

Society already struggles to mitigate the undesirable effects of those that will not work, preferring to claim a lifetime of benefits while causing nothing but adversity to society as a whole. How much worse will it be when even those with drive, ambition, and intelligence find that there are no jobs for them to fill?

Mobile coverage on trains really is pants

Re: Works for the wrong people

"You presuppose that they were ever talking to someone in the first place..."

Yep - I'll never forget about 10 years ago, catching a Northern line train south into London. The wannabe gangster yoot opposite blabbed and blabbed on his phone, answering questions as though he were having a two way conversation. That he'd not noticed we'd been underground for the past 6 stations was slightly amusing.

Re: I call BS

Travelling from Kings Cross to Cambridge, I tried in vain to grab a stable connection (on call, had to remote into the office) all along that route. Given the length of a train vs the length of a tunnel, there's really no excuse for the TOC and the telcos not offering a stable connection for the whole length of the journey.

Lies, damn pies and obesity statistics: We're NOT a nation of fatties

@AC

"There are factors relating to food intake that skew the results. The calories used to digest some salad veg, fruit, vegetables especially uncooked, are greater than the calories absorbed from that food. Raw carrot will deliver fewer calories than cooked carrot."

Is there any possibility of a citation for that please? I had understood that no food provides a net calorie burn.

Re: Laziness

"Laziness is what is making the UK fat/unfit."

Sort of agree. I'm fat, BTW, which is my own fault. I've also ran multiple marathons at one time or another, and have a box of trophies in the loft from different sports from martial arts to swimming.

A key component of the reason being I work a 9 or 10 hour day and have 3 hours commuting on top, plus a small child to look after, and courses to complete of an evening. I get about 2 hours of leisure time a week, and sadly, I don't spend that hanging about in a room full of sweaty blokes.

I try to compensate by taking the stairs 8 floors to my desk rather than the lift, and cutting out/down on the amount of garbage I feed myself. But still, I'm fat because I exercise too little. Unless someone can force the TOC to get their act together, or more houses are built closer to my work place, then I can't make extra hours appear in the day. Give me an extra hour a day and I'd probably split it between exercise, more time with my child, and sleep.

The unfortunate reality you can't see is that some of us are fat because we don't have time to go to the gym due to work, transport, and family. It's not being lazy: it's being busy. You'll be amazed to know I don't spend time pawing the window at Greggs of an evening. I don't have time!

Breaking news: Man with Apple shares really wishes they were worth even more

Re: He has a point, actually

"Apple have so much cash sitting around than they can conceivably invest or otherwise use prudently, they may as well give a lot of the cash to shareholders."

It's not quite that simple. Much (most?) of the cash is held offshore where it has not been taxed. To distribute it, they'd have to repatriate it (thus paying taxes which massively shrink their cash mountain) or take an onshore loan secured against the offshore cash, and pay interested on that.

Having cash in offshore jurisdictions works incredibly well for large corporates as just about the only thing they can't do with it is pay dividends.

'A motivated, funded, skilled hacker will always get in' – Schneier

Re: "Find a solution to that problem, you'll be rich beyond royalty wealth.."

"With good engineering practices, it's possible to make a Unix system bulletproof"

Sorry, but there is no such thing as a bulletproof unix system. That particular punchbowl has been drained dry and the hangover has started to kick in.

Security is an OS agnostic issue and ALL of them have weaknesses awaiting exploit. You too will be hacked just as soon as someone figures out a new route and wants into your company enough to hit it first.

A little more sobriety needs to come forth from the unix community. After decades of it being Microsoft, things have changed, you are the weakest link.

Crims zapped mobes, slabs we collared for evidence, wail cops

Wiping a seized device is already perverting the course of justice, so while it might help those facing serious charges, for most run of the mill offences you'd be committing a far more serious offence to cover up a minor infraction.

El Reg Christmas Lectures to span space, big data and GCHQ

Re: GCHQ

"Unfortunately a London location rules me out. How about doing something in Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, York, Hull, hell anywhere north of Watford?"

El Reg is a media organisation and in common with most media outlets it has never ventured outside of the M25.

Since I'm in London these days, it works for me, but I'd agree with your post. The beer is certainly better the further north you go, and the absence of skinny Geordies suggests the pies are too!

Euro probe headed for Amazon's tax back door

Re: @AC - Stop blaming the EU....

"Having worked alongside several groups of people in EU agencies I can't see much of what you claim."

Well, I based it on a family members terms and conditions, so I've got a high degree of confidence in it. She's an AST3 grade at EMA, so not senior but not the lowest grade either.

@AC - Stop blaming the EU....

"The member states should collectively refuse to make any payments at all into the EU budget until all of the accounts are up to date; it can pay it's own costs from the funds raised by removing all of the special perqs and exemptions enjoyed by EU officials and MEPs, and if that isn't enough money, it can start making obvious cuts - like stopping the stupidity of relocating things between Brussels and Strasbourg every so often"

...until you understand just how much worse things really are.

Allow me to explain, for those that don't know, how EU agencies work within their host countries. The Agency reports to the EU commission and is beyond the reproach of national governments.

The staff, in order to pay a harmonised rate across the EU, don't pay local income taxes - they pay a 10% withholding tax. There are additional pay (allowances) for having children, getting them educated, being recruited abroad (or within your first 3 years residence in the country in which you're hired), final salary pension etc etc which all nets up to earning roughly tripple the wage for the same role in the UK private sector. Some senior staff have diplomatic status, and many staff of really rather low grade can buy diplomatic vehicles that are not taxed in their host country. Only teachers have longer holidays, and only by a week or two. The list of perks is almost endless.

So, please, by all means resume your annoyance with the EU.... just be clear that whatever annoys you about them will be the tip of the iceberg.

Oh, just one last thing.... once you've been employed for > 10 years, your job is legally yours for life. You can't be made redundant. You get a "permanent contract".

UK banks hook themselves up to real-time cop data feed

Woodlawn

Any second now Raylan Givens is going to stop being a US Marshal and revert to being a badass. Then old Bruce Willis will rock up in a tatty vest, bald head, and kick a lot of ass.

Sadly, the flaw in the above script was that Woodlawn was put together by a genius, and it's highly unlikely this gubbins was.

Emma Watson urges UN to back feminism – trolls threaten to leak her 'nude selfies'

"I think 4chan would be daft to try it, even if the photos do exist and they do have them. Emma Watson's UN gig means that she'll have access to a lot of well connected and motivated lawyer mates."

Go ask the ladies on one of the TOR based "dark web" revenge image sites how well legal avenues are working out for them. Lawyers aren't nearly so powerful as they like to think they are. Fundamentally, if you are willing to ignore the legal systems of several jurisdictions, why would you care what a lawyer thinks?

Please don't misunderstand my post as siding with those clowns. I don't, which is why I've not named any of the sites I was thinking of. They are, frankly, a disgrace. That said, I have a lot more sympathy with people whose spiteful exes are handing out candid photos like candy, than I do if some fame hungry starlet attracts the wrong kind of fame.

Germany strikes again over Amazon warehouse pay

Amazon is quite clearly a logistics business and as such employees operating the back end of the logistics chain are logistics workers, not retail. Using the unions argument, your butcher is a banker because he handles cash as well as meat.

Re: The 'Jack Boot' is on the other foot now!

"As a German I am deeply offended by these comments, still I am also happy in the knowledge that I have better healthcare, produce better cars, have higher pay, a better living standard, cheaper beer, cleaner streets, longer paid holidays, job security against redundancy , a better work ethic to name but a few points."

Yes, but collectively you love the music of David Hasslehoff. So we win.

Re: The 'Jack Boot' is on the other foot now!

"The Germans ended up bankrupt and with millions dead, their country split in two and half of them living under communism for the next half century because of a right-wing dictatorship"

Not that old line again.....

There is nothing right wing about National Socialists. The greatest trick the devil ever pulled wasn't convincing the world that he didn't exist, it was convincing the hard left that they weren't the bad guys in WWII.

THE DEATH OF ECONOMICS: Aircraft design vs flat-lining financial models

Re: Corporations paying zero tax, a solution?

"ok, lets. Why would I tax it to 1% ? If this money goes to a "friendly" place, I might indeed tax it at 1%, or even 0.1%, but if it's going to a place where I know you're going to leverage 100:1 and do HFT that destroys my economy, you can bet I won't let you get away that cheap. Let's rather talk about a 30% tax here."

LOL! Good luck with that. At best, at very best, you'll see firms taking out loans abroad to fund their transactions well away from your spite tax (See Apple for details). You'll simply get £0 with a rate anywhere north of 0.1%. I used 1% only to keep the numbers simple for you in the forlorn hope you might follow what was written.

"Then I'll see you travelling, and my custom agents might ask you to open your bag. And how are you going to transport that Porsche, that Bose home-cinema, those boxes of fine Champagne, that private jet ... that you want to buy with your hard earned money ? Because they are manufactured by people living here and thanks to good infrastructure and education, all paid-for by taxes."

But you won't. Firstly you're assuming all my property is in the UK, when at the level we're talking about, it won't be. Secondly you can't tax EU registered vehicles entering the UK. And lastly, pay attention now because this point it critical, you're talking about at best being able to tax a very small percentage of the profits I repatriate after indulging in unlimited financial transactions offshore. So that 0.1% you might have hoped for is now looking like 0.0000000000000001%

See any premiership footballer for details.

"I have effectively made them unprofitable, but not only here, in many places. "

No, you've made them expensive here theoretically, because they'll all still take place, just offshore and away from you.

See what happened to New York when they upped tax on Wall Street (hint, big hint, it moved to the City)

"Because even if the financial world pretends to have its own life, at some point there is collateral, and a financial transaction tax is effective when you need that collateral, so it will, in effect, starve the financial world of real-world collateral. "

You obviously don't understand what collateral is. See any decent book on finance.

"Especially as most collateral is government bonds, which are geographically bound."

Erm, no, they aren't. They might be geographically issued, but that is all. Or do you mistakenly believe all T-Bills are held within the US, and all Gilts within the UK? What about derivatives of these?

See any central bank for details.

"good riddance. But it's also funny in a historic perspective."

Ahh, the old socialist spite & envy. It never takes long to bubble to the surface.

Re: Corporations paying zero tax, a solution?

"you're talking about a different problem"

No I'm not. The situation you describe being transfer pricing, which is nought to do with capital flight, which is what will happen with any tobin tax.

"And as soon as the money leaves the tax-heaven to be used for something (like buying a Porsche or a Rolex) it's taxed."

It isn't. It really isn't.

You get one hit of the tax bong when the capital leaves. Let's call it a £1M transaction to keep the numbers small and easy. You tax that at 1% so you get £10k, and the transaction stands are a net £990k.

The capital from the transaction is now offshore and away from your sticky mits. You now get £0 on the £100M+ of transactions I use it for. You never get to tax any of those transactions or the vast bulk of the profits.

If I repatriate a small slice of the profit, you might get to tax that.... then again, you might not. I'd just buy the Rolex abroad and wear it home.

All you've really achieved is to drive the vast bulk of financial transactions offshore, driven taxes on profits and dividends through the floor, and offshored a lot of bank workers job. As a spite tax, it works very well indeed, but economically, it is nothing short of an absolute disaaster.

Re: We should be happy

"Will they learn and vote for someone (anyone) they actually believe in or will they vote for the other party who will pat their head and tell them not to worry?"

The electorate never learn.

You could dig up Jimmy Saville, Fred West, and Myra Hindley, pin a red rosette onto them, and Scotland, Wales, and much of Northern England would vote for them. If they promised to splash still more money we don't have on the public sector, most commentards would vote for them too.

In May 2015, we will find out if we have reached tipping point or not. If labour win, there is truly no way back for England. By the time the next election rolls round in 2020, we'd be back in recession, with an even larger deficit and debt, and the credit rating of Greece. Then you'll see some cuts - public pension defaults, pay cuts, quite possibly coupled with the previously unthinkable - full default and a second labour phone call to the IMF.

Re: The Mission of Banks is to Cause Debt!

"This means that in the USA, the SENSIBLE approach to negative equity is to walk away, quickly, whilst in the UK, people hold on in the forlorn hope they might make their money back before they die."

I'm not sure how its forlorn hope? I had a rather nasty bite of the negative equity cherry in this crash, but time has completely bailed me out. Not only has it done so before I die, but it has happened in just 6 years. Year 7 has seen theoretical gains (as in reality I can't seel as I'd have to buy somewhere else so there's no actual profit).

Profits and losses on housing are only real if you have sell, be it by choice or compulsion. Anything else is just a feeling.

Re: Where's Worstall?

"In addition, you need time to do everything. Both energy and time are inherently finite."

Not on any human scale they're not. For as long as the sun exists, there will be available energy, there will also be time.

If we needed it for any pressing purpose, we could extract energy far faster than we currently do. Until the end of the species, time will be infinite in economic terms and irrelevant afterwards.

Re: If you give a politician 1£ ...

"we have control over what our government is spending and can even vote down a project (via a referendum) if enough people consider it inappropriate/too expensive."

The only problem with that is that people without knowledge of the issue being debated, and those bought & paid for by the government, such as public servants, also get to vote.

Re: Corporations paying zero tax, a solution?

"it's actually very easy: a tax on financial transactions"

Actually, it isn't very easy at all.

You might capture a tax on a transaction between the UK and say, Delaware, but once that money has left the UK, it will never return. Why would it? It's now free to be used for transactions, legitimate or otherwise, entirely unfettered by the dead hand of the state or further taxation.

In reality, your proposal just beggars the nation that introduces it first, and as such is wholly unworkable. It might appeal to those such as the author, who by parroting the lie that "banks exist to increase debt" ad nauseam, is looking for just such support for his barmy ideas about how economies work or what they exist to achieve.

Bill Gates, drugs and the internet: Top 10 Larry Ellison quotes

Last of the titans

Well, I'll miss old Larry. His products are, in my opinion, shit. But that doesn't matter.

With Balmer/Gates moving from Developers! Developers! Developers! to Retirement! Retierment! Retirement!, Bob Diamond proving that Diamonds aren't forever, Steve Jobs leaving us for real, and now Ellison hanging up his spurrs, there's really not many CEOs with any character left. Warren Buffet and Michael O'Leary are the only exceptions that spring to mind.

The current crop are mostly dull, mostly identikit, and mostly out of their depth. So enjoy retirement, CEOs of yesteryear, you'll be missed.... just not for the reasons you might have thought.

JINGS! Microsoft Bing called Scots indyref RIGHT!

Re: Suck - cession

"bang goes the Scots oil"

There's a few issues with that....

Borders are drawn at the angle they intersect the sea, not along parallell lines. That makes the vast majority of the active oil fields Geordie, rather than Scots. The remaining fields are currently uneconomic to pursue. Grab a map and put the ruler from Carlisle to Berwick, then see which side of it the oil fields reside.

Furthermore any division of oil rights will have to be pro-rata'd just like the national debt. So if Scotland are taking 4/65ths of the debt, the only get 4/65ths of the oil rights. It's not like they could stop us running some pipes ashore near Berwick or Newcastle... what are they going to do, invade? There simply aren't enough Scots to pose a threat.

Re: Looks like many are missing the point

"England might comprise the majority in the UK but that does not give them license to effectively neglect and abuse the rest of the UK."

You'd be right, had that ever happened, but it hasn't.

There is no part of Scotland, Wales, or NI that can legitimately complain to be any more neglected by Westminster than the North East of England. Just the opposite, in fact.

Re: I've probably drank more of it than most Scots

@Abel Soul "And continue to do so, by the look of things."

Looking at your downvote, you can't please all the people all the time, but I thought it was funny anyway :)

Upvoted.

Re: Looks like many are missing the point

"The way the system is setup Wales, Scotland and N. Ireland can get rode over rough shod"

All as it should be. Collectively they have a population of about 10 million, so equal only to the greater London area. Individually, Wales & Scotland would be large counties, and NI a middle of the road one. Giving them greater power is not democracy in any meaningful sense since it makes a Scots vote worth more than an English one, which is wrong.

Re: I hope they vote yes

"There would be huge pressure to bring forward the next Scottish parliament elections to before "independence day". Anyone care to bet that there'd be another referendum?"

If they vote to leave, then change their mind and ask to stay, they need to understand the terms of the deal change. Barnett would be politically unacceptable to the English, as would devolution. There would need to be a realisation that adding together the populations of Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, you get fewer people than the population of Greater London met area. The tail does not wag the dog.

Re: Vote Yes

"He could prefer the Irish stuff."

Single malt Bushmills was where I made my bones, and picked up the spelling, but these days I prefer the Highlands and Islands to the Irelands, though both are masters of the craft. Japan is certainly a promising contender too, so anyone that has yet to sample a Yamazaki should overcome their fear of travelling, and give it a whirl.

Re: Vote Yes

"I find the Oban most agreeable"

It is indeed a fine dram, though as the 14 bottled is already watered to near perfection, I prefer mine neat. I'm more than happy to amend the configuration on a cask strength malt though.

Re: Vote Yes

I've probably drank more of it than most Scots. To quibble over the spelling of such a fantastic drink, when both whiskey and whisky are correct, is to miss the point.

Now, if you had a more sensible debate, such as the comparative merits of a Lagavulin over a Glenfarclas, then we'd be in business.

Re: I hope they vote yes

"I hope they vote yes

Otherwise we will have to go though all this crap again in a decade or so."

No chance. Any political party in England even hinting that a further vote will be allowed at any time within the next 100 years has lost my vote for life. MPs of all colours (for yes, I am a floating voter) should pay heed, as you never know when I'll live in your constituency, and I'm more than happy to vote for whomever is your main opposition in the seat.

The issue is too disruptive. Either the Scots stay, or they go. They make their choice now, because come Friday there's only the living with it to look forward too. The one thing there won't be, is another vote.

Vote Yes

Pretty please Scotland, for the love of the English, vote Yes.

I have secured my money in England, in Sterling where it will be safe. I love Edinburgh and really would like a nice cheap holiday flat on Princes Street. Almost from the moment you vote Yes Scottish property prices will begin to slide. They won’t stop sliding for years until either A) you’re eventually admitted to the EU (and Euro) which is unlikely to happen, or B) the Salmond/Wallace/whatever you call your currency has finished depreciating against Sterling. I’m expecting 40% off within the first 3 years, falling to an eventual real terms gap of 50%, but it could be even lower.

Working in the City, we’re already seeing a boost to the number of clients and account balances held at English institutions, which I expect to lead to more stable career prospects as time marches on. As a tax payer, shifting a solid chunk of the national debt off the books onto Scotland, while booking higher tax revenues due to corporate relocations, and spending a lot less due to the Barnett formula, the future will truly be rosy if you just vote Yes.

As a whiskey lover, I’m looking forward to duty free trips to stock up on the water of life. You’ll be outside the EU for a few years, so will be duty free for booze runs, and devaluation of the Salmond will make it oh so cheap. Maybe a holiday cottage on Islay too….

So please Scotland, for the love of the English, dig deep tomorrow and vote Yes.

Spies would need superpowers to tap undersea cables

Re: @RC

"All that is left is a question of how to tap the cable without anyone realising - and there are already methods to do that - and how to filter/collect/retrieve the data. The later is, really, the only big issue."

I'm not wholly sure collection needs to be the problem people are envisaging.

Let's say you go with run another cable. Ok, to where? Nearest land base will be expensive... but what if you didn't go for land? Where else might you be able to route a cable with dry space, power, telecoms, and staff? Perhaps to a deep sea oil rig? I'm not saying it isn't pricey, but it may be cheaper than going back to shore in a seperate country.

Could not some equipment be made that can surface at night, and transmit captured data from during the day? That way your cable length need only be as long as the ocean is deep. Perhaps it could remain submersed, with divers dropping down and plugging in a cable link, which could also recharge the power storage?

I don't want to sound tin foil hatty about any of this. I'm not saying it has BEEN done ... but surely, taken as a series of engineering challenges by people smarter than I, with an vast budget and a lot of time, I am sure it COULD be done.

Sony says year's losses will be four times deeper than thought

Surely the time has come for Sony execs to realise the jig is up. Break up the company and set the profitable divisions free..... otherwise there's not gonna be a PS5.

Israeli spies rebel over mass-snooping on innocent Palestinians

Re: A joke, or some form of Israeli PR right? @h4rm0ny

""the deaths of Palestinian civilians are equally tragic"

Except it seems to you that they're not."

Then you have misunderstood or ignored what I have written.

"There's a thing called "proportionality" in military law. To put it bluntly, the law states that only the force necessary should be used to defeat any given foe. "

Given that peace has not been achieved, your statement allows for a significant escalation of the military response.

"And there's no defending Israel's assault on Gaza as "proportionate"."

Really? I view it as rather restrained myself. Israel hasn't known a decades peace since WWII. It is attacked without mercy and without rest.

"Right, so where are they to hide?"

They are not to hide. Terrorists hide. If they wish to behave a soldiers, waging war upon an enemy, then they should bloody well stand and fight the battle they started. Hoping to defray your losses by hiding behind civillians is the mark of a coward. It also makes increased civillian deaths unavoidable.

"So they're hiding in tunnels, and your pet military the IDF comes along and demolishes a hospital where there may be injured Hamas military men getting treatment"

The IDF are nothing to do with me, and certainly not my pet. Are you always so emotional?

I presume you're referring to the hospital whose basement was ebing used as a military HQ and weapons cahce? That hospital? Well, what exactly did you think would happen?

Until the people of Palestine learn to love their children more than they hate Israelis, they will continue to die. For as long as the people of Palestine allow men of war to hide behind them, they will continue to die alongside them. If this is news to you, then you haven't been paying attention.

As has already been said, legitimate armies use their weapons to protect civilians: Hamas use civilians to protect their weapons. And you have the gaul to blame the IDF for that?

Re: A joke, or some form of Israeli PR right? @h4rm0ny

"The aim should be to end the rockets. For that you look at why there are rockets. Reasonable enough?"

There's a problem with that aim. Israel can't end the rockets. Only the Palestinians can, and they simply don't want to. Nothing Israel does will ever be enough for them unless it nukes itself, which would be a tad unusual as an approach to ending conflict.

"You ask what I think Israel should do? Happy to answer. Withdraw from the Occupied Territories, stop blockading supplies into Palestine, stop bombing power stations, schools, homes, stop carrying out assassinations, invite the UN to negotiate a proper peace and accept it. This would undermine support for attacks on Israel by the common Palestinians who just want peace and to live their lives."

And here you go massively off track. I asked how Israel should respond, in essence, militarily.

Stoping bombing powerstations, schools, and homes first requires that Hamas stop launching rockets from those locations and hiding their stockpile of weapons in such locations.

Stopping assasinations as you call them is easy. Palestine simply needs to hand over for trial all of the terrorists within its midst, such as the entire leadership and membership of Hamas.

"Against a populace and people who have nowhere to retreat to and thus cannot be the ones to end the conflict. "

So, so very wrong. The conflict can be over tomorrow. Palestine simply never fires another bullet, bomb, or rocket at Israel, and the war would be over forever. Contrary to your suggestion, the possibility of peace exists solely within the hands of the Palestinians, for it is they whom are always the aggressor.

"Israel is bombing and attacking an urban area. Where exactly do you expect to find the people you're attacking other than in the place you're attacking? If there's a "gunman" in a home, there's a good chance that's because he LIVES there. This is what happens when you invade somewhere people live."

Again you have this arse-about-face. Palestine is launching the attack from those locations, so where exactly is it you expect the military response to fall? Stand in the street behind your wife and children and start shooting up the place. When the police arrive, it'll be no good moaning if your wife catches a bullet because its your fault for hiding behind her while firing a weapon.

"No Palestinian has the power to force the IDF to bomb schools and powerstations or to bulldoze homes"

Every single Palestinian with a gun, rocket launcher, or who allows the use of their home for military or terrorist purposes has that power and has caused the response they have received. Every. Single. One.

"Only the most twisted logic could argue that a group so much weaker is forcing a far more powerful and well-funded body to murder it in such numbers. "

Only most deluded mind would fail to grasp that launching a military campaign from a civilian area will result in many civillian dead. Yet still they choose it and you defend it.

Bear this in mind: Hamas have killed more Palestinians in this conflict than they have killed Israelis.

"As a species we should be better than this."

I suspect this is our only possible zone of agreement on this issue.

Re: In God's Name

"I always thought that fighting in the name of your god is huge insult to that god, like they are too weak and cowardly to do it themselves."

Agreed, but the idiocy only really begins when you consider that it is the same God. So one group of followers is killing the other group of followers, in an argument essentially about which of Gods messengers was right. Apparently it has occurred to nobody that were the confusion worth killing over, God would probably have sent a further messenger to clarify the position.

Re: A joke, or some form of Israeli PR right? @h4rm0ny

"However it is spun, one cannot have hundreds of Palestinian deaths, homes demolished, people displaced, power shut off to schools and hospitals and homes, and a handful of deaths on the Israeli side and present it as Israel defending itself."

So in your view, if this doesn't constitute Israel defending itself, what does? It's not like Hamas don't know how Israel will respond.

When rockets rain down upon the heads of their children, how should Israel respond? With a polite rebuke? Maybe some harsh language? An appeal to the UN? Perhaps they should limit themselves to the same level of technology employed by their aggressor? (though if you choose this, bear in mind that the only reason there are not vastly more Israeli dead is that Hamas lack the capability to achieve it, not the ambition) Perhaps they should limit the use of their military arsenal to some other arbitrary level?

Now, whatever level of response it is you end up proposing, consider if you might prefer a stronger response if it were to be your child who next meets a rocket.

Obviously, the deaths of Palestinian civilians are equally tragic, but they differ in some important aspects. 1) Palestine is already deploying its full military capability against Israel, it's just that the capability isn't great. 2) When you allow gunmen to hide amongst your children, in their schools, hospitals, and homes, you must realise that more of them will die when the counter attack comes. How could it be otherwise?

Read IBM's note to staff announcing mandatory training and 10% pay cut

Re: Is this actually warranted?

"Pushing for steadily increasing EPS while revenue steadily declines is simply not sustainable. The way they are making this 'work' is to jettison anything that does not directly add to their EPS for the current quarter. And each quarter that means getting rid of staff."

The bank at which I work is following the same path. We always had 20/70/10, but now even solid performance isn't a help if you happen to be in part of the bank slated for disposal. It may be no confort to many to understand that the City at least practices what it preaches.

"Wall Street simply does not care for a profitable and sustainable IBM; they care only about making money from them."

I apologise in advance, for this will sound harsh, but it is not Wall Streets job to care for IBM. It is only their job to make distributable gains, which require an increasing quarterly dividend or retained earnings. IBM may go to the wall, but ultimately, the people with the skills will still exist and the capital it tied up will find a more productive home. That is a central tennet of capitalism.

'There is no downside – unless you count the total bath you take moving your stuff'

"Hmmm ... not sure which part of Australia your family are in"

Perth. One of the most monocultural cities on Earth.

OECD lashes out at tax avoiding globocorps' location-flipping antics

Its not about taking more...

In order to work in all but the short term, taxes need to be predictable, unavoidable, and low. Miss anyone feature and you get avoidance, structuring, and evasion. And you always will.

To that end, we should aim for a tax rate of 10% on all income, be it PAYE, dividends, interest, or profit – dividends paid in the UK would be tax free where the corporation tax is paid here. You’ll find very quickly that you’ve fixed the tax system, but unfortunately now have less tax revenue to spend; A problem that will persist for a decade or two while your economy grows.

So added to that you need to start with a blank sheet of paper and write down the most important task the state undertakes on our behalf, and a budget for achieving that. Deduct that from your lowest expected tax revenue minus interest payments. Repeat until your lowest expected tax revenue is zero. The state then stops doing all the other things it currently does.

Before the (mostly) public sector employed commentards fire up their angry trousers, consider which of the following services you’d pay for out of your own pocket were the state not offering them:

Street football management

5 a day fruit and veg co-ordination

Diversity management

A hearty lives project manager (meaning there’s a whole team of people paid to make kids in Newham run about a little)

Environmental sustainability / carbon management

The list is almost endless. And absolutely none of it would be paid for in the real world by real people out of their own pockets. We’d all pay for frontline civil defence and military personnel, though probably would question why every other person in the NHS is an administrator or other clerical role, when you don’t find nearly as many in private hospitals.

Before seeking to take someones income to spend on your schemes, first make sure the person you’re taking from shares your vision. The state needs less than half the taxes it takes, and is simply wasteful on an industrial scale. It’s time to cut hard, and cut deep, none of the tickling around the edges we’ve seen the past 5 years. Let’s have a vision, and a target, for what the state could achieve on 10% taxation, instead of the 50% it currently consumes.

Re: hmm

"So you advocate a race to the bottom where nobody pays tax anywhere?"

Oh FFS. Not that unionised garbage again!

10% of £1Bn is a lot more tax than 50% of £1M, or 100% of nothing. Why is it that socialists never get that? We, you, are in a global competition for tax revenues, be it from high earners, or from corporations. Standing on ceremony wittering about some Marxist claptrap isn't going to get the job done.

Reducing tax rates reduces the need for avoidance, and spurrs the economy into action. I have very little incentive to earn more as the state will take half of any gain from me. As a result I prioritise appropriately and simply work less.

Got your NUDE SELFIES in the cloud? Two-factor auth's your best bet for securing them

Re: The next goal?

"At least until the DNA reader is installed."

That'll work wonders for identical twins.

'Speargun' program is fantasy, says cable operator

Re: Logic dictates ...

"if it's a physical impossibility to do it without their knowing then either it wasn't done, or it was done and they know about it but aren't telling ... but they could be wrong about the physical impossibility bit."

Surely the cheapest way is to install one of your stooges into the providers control centre such that a member of your staff receives the alarm notification when you splice the cable, and simply cancels it.

As far as the provider is concerned, nothing happened because they have no record of it. Your stooge simply moves onto the next target after a few months.