Posts by EvilDrSmith

Report slams UK plan to become 'science superpower' by 2030

Re: thank you

The Good Friday agreement does not require explicitly no hard border in the island of Ireland.

Some claim it's implied, but it is not actually specified in the text.

The Good Friday agreement does require that there are no changes to the status of Northern Ireland relative to the UK without the consent of the people of Northern Ireland.

The withdrawal agreement by treating Northern Ireland differently to the rest if the UK breaks that requirement not to treat NI differently from the rest of the UK.

So the Good Friday Agreement and the Withdrawal agreement are in fact not mutually consistent.

UK wants criminal migrants to scan their faces up to five times a day using a watch

Re: Collapse

They weren't French, they were Norsemen taking the long route.

Re: Collapse

Cameron appears to have believed the polls that said Brexit supporters were all Tory voters, and that therefore a load of votes would be lost to UKIP.

Since the Tories couldn't win outright in 2010 after the financial melt down, it followed that the Conservative party would do even worse in 2015, if a load of their votes went to UKIP.

Promising a referendum on EU membership was supposed to retain those votes, and keep the Conservatives as the largest party. I believe Cameron expected to go in to a second period of coalition with the Lib-dems - at which point Cameron would 'attempt' to honour the referendum pledge and Clegg would have vetoed it.

Of course, what we all now know is that it was actually Labour voters that were most in favour of Brexit, so the referendum pledge boosted the Conservatives to an outright win.

While the Lib-Dem's response to any call for a referendum on individual EU treaties did seem to be to support a referendum on membership, I always saw that as a way to say no to the idea of a vote on the individual treaties, rather than any actual desire to have the vote on membership.

SpaceX demonstrates that it too can shower the Earth with debris

Re: Liability

Though wouldn't crown immunity prevent you from suing in the first place, rather than winning the case but being unable to enforce the decision?

Lockheed Martin wins $213m contract to update F-35 datacenter

Re: How much more money is going to be poured into this money pit?

Flying home with one wing is great in that it brings the pilot home safe and sound, but the aircraft is at that point unserviceable.

The A10 option is be tough so that you survive the hit, can bring the crew home and can, in time be repaired

The F35 option is be quick and stealthy, so as not to get hit in the first place.

Since neither aircraft has yet flown in a heavily contested airspace, it is unclear which option is better.

Re: On a different note

Which country would that be? Because my understanding is that the Ukrainians have made it clear that they have no desire for A10s:

July 26: "But in a message to Military.com on Tuesday, Yuriy Sak -- an adviser to Ukraine's minister of defense -- made it clear: The country doesn't need A-10s, it needs the more modern F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter jet. The A-10s "will not close our sky, they will not stop bombers and missiles," Sak said in a message. "They will be a target for Russian jet fighters and anti-aircraft defense, because we don't have the means neither to effectively cover them, nor to break through the enemy anti-aircraft defence."

UK immigration systems delayed by extra Ukraine visa work

Re: A hack

Gov UK states that there were 48,540 asylum applications in the UK (main applicant) in 2021.

BBC states that 28,431 migrant crossings of the channel in 2021.

Clearly, the dinghy crossing numbers are a significant proportion of the total asylum seekers arriving in the UK.

Others will have arrived by plane, or by 'formal' cross Channel methods (i.e commercial ferry, smuggled on trucks).

Re: A hack

Why is it naked racist to use an African country?

What is it about Africa that you think makes it unsuitable for refugee resettlement? Do you have some sort of bigoted, unsubstantiated opinion that Africa is somehow less...civilised... than the rest of the world?

Why do you consider being sent to an African Country as being 'punishment'?

It appears that the bigot here is you.

And if you are so upset about the UK plan to send migrants to Rwanda, presumably, you were equally vocal in condemning the EU when it proposed to move refugees from Libya to Rwanda in 2019.

Or is sending migrants to Rwanda not disgusting when it's proposed by the EU?

DARPA seeks portable muon-making machine to see through almost anything

Re: Meanwhile, here in the UK

They stick MRI scanners in trailers, which appear to include a fairly robust lump of steel for the chassis/trailer frame, so as long as the shop has a decent strength floor slab (and you can actually get through the access doors without too much demolition), it would seem to be do-able.

It takes an exascale supercomputer to drive carbon capture

Re: Wooden houses?

We do:

(Example link - first that I found)

https://www.building.co.uk/buildings/timber-frames-will-we-see-wooden-skyscrapers-in-the-future/5097471.article.

The added benefit is reducing concrete use (concrete requires cement, and cement production is very energy hungry)

UK government refuses public review before launch of NHS data platform

Re: 52% is not a decisive vote

A minimum 60% (or whatever) may be common elsewhere, and may also be sensible - it is certainty a point worth considering.

However, while some places, like Switzerland, I believe, hold referendums quite regularly, they are rare in the UK, and I believe that 50%+1 is typically what we have used here (does anyone have the rules for the 1974 referendum on the EEC to hand? or the Scottish independence referendum?)

Regardless, 50%+1 was the agreed basis for winning prior to the referendum.

Both leave and remain campaigns agreed that rule.

If I recall correctly (perhaps I don't, it was a while ago), the SNP voted against having the referendum at all, but other than that, no one disputed or disagreed with that rule prior to the vote.

If you have written proof of objections to the '50%+1' winning margin rule from before the campaign started, I would genuinely be interested to see them.

But it does seem to be the case that leave were happy with 50%+1 as the best chance they had to win, while remain (anticipating a win with ~55 to perhaps 60% of the vote) were not keen to set a 'super majority' requirement that they did not anticipate that they would achieve, so were just as happy to agree 50%+1.

I suspect the remain campaign realised how bad it would look to set a super-majority requirement, fail to meet it themselves, then claim victory by default of maintaining the status quo ante.

For a loser to argue after the event that they were not happy with the rules agreed for the competition, when they made no objection before hand (when they expected to win by the agreed rules) makes them look more like undemocratic sore losers than anything else.

And since the subject has been raised, should I assume that all the people that I predict will down vote me will be demanding that in any future Scottish independence referendum, a super majority of 60% or 67% should be required for independence?

UK signs deal to share police biometric database with US border guards

Indeed.

Television railway documentaries' gain was the country's, erm, gain.

Nope, she doesn't.

Once in a generation.

No conditions. just once in a generation.

The people of Scotland voted on that basis - that the issue would be decided for a generation.

That there would not be another referendum on the question for a generation.

It's the loser in the referendum that is trying to move the goal posts.

Regarding the second amendment - it's not really "an implicit right" since it is, after all, an amendment to the original. Clearly therefore, it could be amended further or even removed entirely. So constitutionally, it would seem to be a straightforward process to change.

Politically, however, anything but.

As you say, no easy or quick fix.

Soviet-era tech could change the geothermal industry

Re: How deep?

Addenda, because I was too late to edit - The Kimmeridge Clay Formation, which is an oil bearing formation, is Jurassic, so ~200 million years old (exposed on the Jurassic Coast in Dorset, runs under Yorkshire and into the North Sea).

Re: Shallow and deep geothermal wells

Eden Project in the UK has a geothermal project to provide their own heating requirements. The bore is a bit less than 5km deep, with the injected water heated to 180 degrees C.

Or that might be the expectation of what they'll get if it's completed - it got into the news because it (unsurprisingly) caused minor earth tremors comparable to what you get from fracking, and that seemed to get some people excited.

Re: How deep?

Very (very) roughly, igneous rocks tend to be very old (in the UK, they tend to be Cambrian / Pre-Cambrian, so say 500million years old +).

Oil and gas reservoirs tend to be carboniferous (I think - that's where the coal tends to be anyway), so about 300 million years old.

Geology, being fun, does sometimes arrange the old rocks on top of the young rocks, but typically oil and gas reservoirs are capped by sedimentary type rocks ( clays / claystones / mudstones ). What matters is porosity (how much empty space there is between rock particles for oil or gas to collect in) and permeability (how connected up those voids are / how quickly oil / gas can flow up through the rock).

All very simplified, you understand.

BOFH: HR's gold mine gambit – they get the gold and we get the shaft

Re: Brilliant...

I'm sure all the BOFH's stairwells have doors, but I suspect that not all of them have stairs.

Microsoft pulls Windows 10/11 installation websites in Russia

Fuel supplies are not "purely civilian". Therefore, they are valid military targets / not inherently a war crime.

Also, the oil (or gas - there seems to be some uncertainty as of the moment I type this) platform attack is so far an unverified claim by the Russians. They have been known to lie.

(Also, it's the Black Sea, not the Baltic).

Always read the comments: Beijing requires oversight of all reader-generated chat

Re: Socialism?

Nope, it's nothing to do with capitalism, and even less to do with the free market (which is often linked with capitalism). After all, a (truly) free market would mean a market that doesn't do as it's told by the Communist Party.

China is a 'post-communist' state, whereby the original requirement for state direction of the economy (nominally for the benefit of all, if you want to be generous in assigning motivation) has become state control of the economy for the benefit of those in charge.

It might be termed crony-capitalism (which is a misnomer, since crony-capitalism isn't capitalism + free market).

Given the similarities to how the 1930's Italian and German economies were run, Fascism might also seem a reasonably applicable descriptor.

The Russian economy / state seems to operate on a similar basis.

TSMC and China: Mutually assured destruction now measured in nanometers, not megatons

Re: What was that ?

Being cloudy and rain soaked is why it's green

Taiwan bans exports of chips faster than 25MHz to Russia, Belarus

Sweden and Switzerland both dealt with (traded with) Germany during WWII, and were and are accepted as being neutral during the war. They also dealt with /traded with the Allies.

Which side of a conflict is the aggressor can be (emphasise on 'can') subjective (what one side thinks is reasonable, the other side considers an act of aggression justifying an aggressive response). Third parties may agree with either point of view (or have entirely their own view), so different third parties may have differing views as to which of the countries at war is the aggressor.

Moreover, it is generally useful for both sides in a war to have one or more intermediaries that both sides trust as 'neutral', to aid in ceasefire negotiations/peace making, prisoner swaps, etc, etc.

So in fact, it is normal for a neutral to deal with an aggressor.

However, it is generally accepted that neutrals should not supply arms to either party in a war if they wish to preserve neutrality. Hence, for example, the current issue that Switzerland will not allow Swiss-made 35mm cannon ammo (for the Gepard Flakpanzers that Germany has said it will transfer to Ukraine, assuming it ever actually does) to be sent to Ukraine.

However, the line is not always that clear as to what is 'war material': Sweden provided high quality ball bearings to Germany in WW2 - but also to the UK (high-speed Mosquito runs passed the German air defences).

Fusion won't avert need for climate change 'sacrifice', says nuclear energy expert

Re: Fusion quite possibly will never work but there are alternatives

A Severn barrage would be disastrous, environmentally, but tidal lagoons* would be feasible with much less environmental impact, albeit with less energy produced, so less cost-effective.

*Very large concrete donuts in the water, that retain water at high tide and slow release to generate power.

Re: Fusion quite possibly will never work but there are alternatives

Geothermal drilling in Cornwall recently caused earth tremors, of much the same magnitude as fracking caused, which were used to get fracking suspended in the UK.

The fact that we have just had a natural earthquake in the UK somewhat more powerful and which caused no significant damage and no injuries is unlikely to have the slightest impact on the fracking argument.

So Geothermal - yup, good idea, and the technology seems to work and be able to provide reliable 24 hours/day energy. However, be prepared for objections from the self-proclaimed environmentalists.

Ex-spymaster and fellow Brexiteers' emails leaked by suspected Russian op

Re: Russian government's favourite playbook

No, it was symptom of the stupidity of the labour party in choosing a leader even more unsuitable to be PM.

Johnson is an amoral liar and cheat, but we've had a fair number of them as PM in the past, and they did the UK no long term harm. He was the least worst option.

A curse on all their houses.

Re: Sowing Division

African or European?

Re: Sowing Division

If the board is circular, they are obviously pieces of π.

Beijing needs the ability to 'destroy' Starlink, say Chinese researchers

Re: @Pete 2 - wolf in sheeps clothing

I believe the exclusion zone around the Falklands was actually not directed at Argentina (we'll kill anything of yours in it), but actually to the world (and with a particular hint to the Soviet Union, should they start poking spyships, ahem, trawlers, into the area), that anything (ship/sub/plane) within the zone might be subjected to attack without warning.

Effectively, the zone around the islands was now a free fire/live fire zone, and the declaration of the exclusion zone (or declarations - the Total Exclusion Zone followed on an earlier version) was somewhat like the NOTAMs that certain bits of airspace are closed when large military (live-fire) exercises are held.

In meant that if anyone was stupid enough to (for example) fly an airliner through the zone and it got shot down, responsibility would clearly lie with whatever idiot sent the airline though a declared conflict zone (noting that maritime patrol / reconnaissance aeroplanes, which are clearly fair targets, are often variants of civilian airlines, as was the case for Argentina in 1982).

Google Russia goes broke after bank account snatched

Re: Seize Russian ships

"That's 3 out of how many?"

Less than 100 (given that there are ~190 countries in the world in total)

You might want to recalibrate that "99% of leaders...only in Europe"

Tech pros warn EU 'data adequacy' at risk if Brexit Britain goes its own way

Re: Inadequate approach to data adequacy

"The only way to Get Brexit Done and avoid a customs border at the Irish border was to create a customs border in the Irish Sea instead "

Or to introduce a trusted trader scheme with electronic submission of documentation, avoiding any physical border checks.

Or to place the border between the Irish Republic and the European mainland (as the EU apparently developed plans for, in the event of a no deal, much to the discomfort of the Irish Government)

John Deere tractors 'bricked' after Russia steals machinery from Ukraine

Re: DRM and theft prevention

The Argentinians didn't run out of planes and pilots to launch Exocet.

The launch aircraft was the Super Etendard, and none were lost.

The Argentinians converted some shipboard Exocets to ground launched, damaging HMS Glamorgan.

And while I am as ready as any other Englishman to slag off the French at every opportunity, in the spirit of fair play, it is worth noting that the French did share information on the Exocet with the British, to help the Royal Navy plan counter measures.

US Army may be about to 'waste' up to $22b on Microsoft HoloLens

Re: Just what a grunt in a muddy trench, in the rain needs ...

JassMan,

All good comments, agreed, but that's a lot of specialist expensive tech that you are now sticking very near the front line to try and locate my specialist and expensive tech.

Also, assuming I'm using my specialist expensive tech in a sensible manner (i.e only transmitting briefly, and when necessary), you will need to have a mortar (or whatever) tasked and ready to fire as soon as you pick up the signal. If you need to move the weapon into range and then set up the weapon, I've likely moved somewhere else (if I have any sense / know that you have this capability).

But since you don't know where on the battlefield I am until you pick up the signal, you actually need a whole load of mortar's or similar in position ready to fire, to be able to reliably exploit this once you detect my signal. Only, you probably need those weapons to be doing something else.

In practice, I'm a small, mobile target, that is difficult to detect (and can only be detected at quite close ranges).

Intercepting the signal and reacting to it (being ABLE to react to it) is going to take a lot of resources on your part.

(And then we get into silly season - I know that you can do this, so I set up a remote transmitter and cover it with a counter-battery radar, so that when you react to what you think is me using the system, I can pin-point and kill your mortars: move and countermove)

Re: Just what a grunt in a muddy trench, in the rain needs ...

HammerOn1024

Fair points, but is it an issue in practice?

Triangulation means picking up the signal from two points, (one point just gives you a bearing) and as you note, it's not like the signal is likely to be travelling all that far.

So you need two interception points on the ground that both pick up the signal, and which are in contact with each other (which either means a cable placed in advance, or at least one of the two intercept stations has to itself also transmit). Both intercept stations have to be close enough to pick up the signal which means they are well within range of all sorts of weapons, even down to small arms.

And you are trying to track a person, who might be quite mobile.

Counter-battery radars have the advantage that they pick up a projectile which is following a ballistic flight path, so by tracking a chunk of the flight path mid-flight, they can project back to it's point of origin, and they can do this from some miles behind the actual front line. You then use that data to counter battery fire at an artillery battery that an might be moving off fairly quickly after they fire their last round, but not instantaneously.

US Space Force unit to monitor region beyond Earth's geosynchronous orbit

Re: Don’t look up.

It's all true!

There was a documentary made about it:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061387/?ref_=tt_urv

Russian media watchdog bans Google from advertising its services

Re: Witty comment

I think (I admit I'm not certain) that the Geneva Convention providing protection to civilians was implemented after WW2 (probably in part due to the bombing of civilian areas).

Laws are not retrospective.

If bombing Dresden (Tokyo/Coventry/Rotterdam/Warsaw/ Singapore/etc) was a war crime, then there must be a law (international agreement) that prohibited it.

It may have been (depending on point of view) immoral, but that doesn't make it a war crime.

Vital UK customs system outage contributes to travel chaos at its borders

Re: @Spaceman9

At the time, the remain supporters were very vocal in claiming that the UK's pursuit of its own vaccine procurement policy was due to BREXIT-driven ideology.

While I have better things to do than find reams of articles from two years ago, it took about 30 seconds to find this one as an example:

https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/britain-eu-vaccine-scheme-coronavirus-access-520265?msclkid=933a5cd6b9a711ecb680f58c7c8bffb3.

(Note the quote from Ed Davey in particular)

The idea that the UK, if it had voted to remain, would have then broken ranks from the EU's vaccine procurement scheme is rubbish.

The fact that the people that are claiming we would have (and therefore that we would have still achieved the same speed of vaccine roll-out) are the same people shouting loudest against any UK divergence from any aspect of EU rules, regulations and standards shows the hypocrisy/dishonesty of such people. Had we remained in the EU, the people claiming we could have followed our own policy would have shrieked and squealed at any suggestion that we might not remain in lock-step with the EU.

There are certainly negatives from BREXIT, but the vaccine roll out was a clear BREXIT benefit. Claiming otherwise just makes you look like an unreasoning fanatic.

Finnish govt websites knocked down as Ukraine President addresses MPs

Re: Defense pact

An effective naval blockade would have led to significant loss of life through starvation (lack of fuel etc to grow crops and to distribute food), plus almost certainly seen the mass murder of the many allied PoWs held in Japan.

As already pointed out, since a blockade is not a quick way to win the war, it would have allowed the ongoing deaths of large numbers of Chinese (military and civilian).

Drop two nukes on Japan - kill (Japanese) civilians

Blockade Japan = Kill (Japanese) civilians, make likely the death of (Chinese) civilians, make likely the murder of allied PoW (i.e own people).

If you can see a clear morally superior alternative, good for you. Both options seem morally bad to me, and I can quite understand why the option that concentrated the suffering on the enemy population was chosen.

Brit techie shows us life in Ukraine amid Russian invasion

"You clearly seem to be angling for an argument"

Nope, but you are correct, it did come over something like that.

I apologise.

and if you go to the flight radar 24 site, you can see 'Jake 12', a US air force EC135 electronic reconnaissance plane doing orbits over eastern Romania. It or similar has been there each time I've thought to check.

Anyone want to ponder the odds that there is a nice rapid link for feeding data from that aircraft to the Ukrainian military in close-to-real time?

You're not disagreeing, but you still use the word "inaction".

Perhaps you missed the various discussions of this on the news last week - I went to the UK Gov site as being the easiest place to find it:

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-largest-bilateral-humanitarian-donor-to-ukraine-as-uk-canada-and-the-netherlands-launch-new-ukraine-solidarity-alliance

All in all, the UK government is certainly not guilty of "inaction", and we are not making excuses.

As I alluded to in my original post, it does seem that some people would rather run down the UK than admit that we are actually doing pretty well in this case.

And all the discussion to date ignores the new refugee scheme that just launched today (which may or might not work, but shows an attempt to do better than we are currently doing).

As 'Is it turned on' pointed out, the UK has been providing assistance to Ukraine since Putin annexed the Crimea.

The performance of the Ukrainian army has significantly improved since 2014, and while that must mostly be credited to the Ukr army itself, it's benefited from British Army training teams, with similarly training provided to the Ukr navy from the Royal Navy. I suspect many of us remember the occasion last year when a Royal Navy ship carried out a freedom of navigation exercise along an internationally established shipping route from Odessa (? Ukraine, anyway), much to the impotent fury of Putin, who had already in effect (and illegally) tried to blockade Ukrainian's eastern ports in the Sea of Azov.. Meanwhile, I understand that Germany for example increased its dependence on Russian fossil fuels after the annexation of Crimea.

The UK was one of the leading nations warning that the Russian 'exercise' was a prelude to invasion, and one of the nations that reacted before the invasion to supply Ukraine with defensive weaponry (having to do so by flying around German airspace, because the German insisted on the bureaucracy being followed, which would have imposed a two week delay to the supply; Germany also blocked Lithuania from exporting artillery systems that originated from Germany going to Ukraine prior to the war starting).

Since the invasion, the UK has continued to supply equipment to Ukraine, and for the most part has been amongst the most vigorous in applying sanctions.

The UK could and I agree should be doing more to support the refugees, but the inadequate response strikes more of standard UK Civil Service inertia than anything deeper.

It does rather seem that some people just want to pick on the things the UK has done poorly to attack the UK or the government, without acknowledge what the UK got right (and other nations, particularly in Europe, got wrong).

Moscow to issue HTTPS certs to Russian websites

Re: release the data once they figure out how to extract it, and hope that it informs Russians

Indeed - Meet the new boss, Same as the old boss...

Re: release the data once they figure out how to extract it, and hope that it informs Russians

Does the February / March (depends on which calendar you are using) count as a failed revolution?

'Failed' implies that the revolution failed to over-throw the old order. The March revolution saw the Tsar stand down, and introduced something resembling (by the standards of the time) a democratic government, and thus achieved it's aims.

That the October/November revolution then over-threw the democratic (~ish) government is perhaps a failure of the post-revolution government, rather than the revolution itself?

But your core point is accepted.

Where are the (serious) Russian cyberattacks?

Re: What about us?

The weapons supplied to the Ukrainians are (so far / apparently, based on media reports) short ranged weapons (Anti-armour, anti-aircraft and small arms) (Plus body armour, medical supplies and other non-weaponry).

These can be classified as 'defensive' in that they cannot be used to attack targets in Russia. (yes, obviously, not if you fire from the border line or cross the border, etc, etc), but only at targets that are part of the invading force inside Ukraine.

I suspect that reluctance of the US to agree to the transfer of the Polish MiGs to Ukraine is in part related to this. Anything that allows an attack on Russian soil is probably viewed in the west as dangerous escalation (I'm inclined to think it would be).

A cyber attack on Russian infrastructure is an actual attack on Russia. That is definitely dangerous escalation.

Russia is the advanced persistent threat that just triggered. Ready?

Re: I don't see that happening

Yes, but only under specific circumstances (No messages from the Admiralty, and Radio 4 being off air, I think it is...)

Other than that, it's a dual-key system.

The PM can authorise the use of nuclear weapons, but cannot order their use.

The head of the Navy (with the authority of the monarch - the head of state, because the armed forces serve the state, not the government) can order their use, but only if authorised by the PM.

I understood that the threat was that if Sweden and Finland sought to join NATO that there would be 'military and political consequences.'

Which I suspect is the sort of thing to make the Swedes and Finns more keen than ever to join NATO.

However, not quite the outright threat to invade suggested by the reports seen by UCAP.

US Navy in mad dash to salvage F-35C that fell off a carrier into South China Sea

Re: The should have upgraded the Harrier ..

They did.

The original Harrier became for the Americans the AV-8A.

The development of the Harrier (GR3 for the RAF / AV-8A for the USMC) to the Harrier GR5 (/GR7/GR9) / Harrier II (AV-8B) was driven to a significant extent by the US rather than the UK. Because, well you know, money.

Given the Harrier entered service around 1970, it had pretty much reached the end of it's credible front-line life.

A number of Harriers were lost (shot down) during the Falklands war, though all to ground-to-air fire.

None were shot down during air-to-air combat. However, that is at least in part due to the operational limits imposed on the Argentine air force, i.e. the endurance of their fighters operating from the mainland.

None of which is to dispute that the Harrier was an exceptionally good aeroplane.

I assume tsrw refers to TSR-2? Very high tech, seemingly very capable, very expensive, very 1950's, very few built (prototypes only 2? 3? something like that) and none entered service

The Mustang was designed by North American Aviation (i.e. by Americans) though to a British Specification.

A good low-level tactical fighter initially, it became an exceptional (all-altitude) fighter when the British thought to stick a Merlin Engine in it.

Maybe it's an experiment to develop a the new anti-UFO defence network.

https://ufoseries.fandom.com/wiki/SkyDiver