* Posts by BigFire

104 publicly visible posts • joined 5 Sep 2007

Former Azzurri project manager who stole £1.3m ordered to pay back £146k

BigFire

Re: Crime doesn't pay...

£1.3million is the amount he stole in the form of excess order. He had to sell these items to unknown third party. I'd say he made less than 40% on that.

Activist investors try forcing Google to pay more taxes

BigFire

There is literally NOTHING preventing those shareholder to pay more taxes. Open your checkbook and write a check to Uncle Sam.

Boffins say hot air makes Antarctica colder

BigFire

Re: Warming more slowly=getting colder.

The Climate Change Causes EVERYTHING. It even causes the rise of the Boko Haram to kill and kidnap schoolgirls.

Judge: Odds of bankrupt Lightsquared sorting itself out are 'zero'

BigFire

Re: The problem with their spectrum was twofold

They thought with their political connection that they could smooth any objection from FCC. Physic has a different story in store.

Cygnus space truck poised for blast-off (again) TODAY

BigFire

That Fireball In the Sky

Guess it still have some trick up its sleeves to show us?

Billionaire dumps Apple stock because Steve Jobs was 'really awful' guy

BigFire

Hey, it's his money

He can do a Joker money pyre ala The Dark Knight, and it's still his money.

Scientists to IPCC: Yes, solar quiet spells like the one now looming can mean Ice Ages

BigFire

Eddy Minimum here we goes.

As the excellent XKCD comic Ice Sheets http://xkcd.com/1225/ demostrates, the vast majority of North American simply cannot survive the oncoming of another Ice Age. We simply have to move down south.

SpaceX Falcon boosts to glory from Vandenberg space force base

BigFire

Re: Rocket Science is HARD

It's one of those lets get some data on whether we can actually salvage the rocket. They didn't save the rocket, but they did managed to get some good data for future test. All of this while on someone else's dime.

Thorium and inefficient solar power? That's good enough for me

BigFire

Re: Thorium reactors

You will not question the ONE TRUE FAITH of Global Warming. Even as we freeze to death, it's still our fault that the world is going to boil.

Tell me why I don't like Moon days: Bob Geldof heads into SPAAACE

BigFire

I'm pretty sure that NASA have send their fair share if Irishman up to space. Now if we're to qualified it as the first Irish Rock Musician in space...

PEAK iPAD: Slab looking a bit peaky, needs big biz to take more tablets

BigFire

LAUSD to the rescue

Have no worry Apple, LAUSD is about to give you a boatload of money. Using construction bond (those are supposed to use for construction of school buildings, payoff in 30 years), the folks that educated me from Elementary through High School are going to buy every student in the system (many of them are either illiterate (all language) or non-English speaking) their shiny iPad that's obsolete in 3 years, at which point, over half would've already been broken or sold...

Amazon founder Bezos snaps up Washington Post

BigFire

Debt and pension liability

Instagram, being a private company have little or no debt or pension liability. So the billion that Facebook buys what they think is 1 billion of worth.

Washington Post Media is loaded with long term debt and especially large amount of pension liability. Sure they have lots of real estate properties that Bezo could potentially leverage to pay off, but still, the $250 million doesn't exactly reveal the true cost.

WPM manged to suckered Barry Dillard into buying Newsweek for $1, and Dillard realized much too late that he overpaid due to debt and pension liability. Dillard have sold it to some other sucker.

US Navy robot stealth fighter in first unmanned carrier landings

BigFire

Re: Very Nice.

The pilot on the remote control might get tired. But they work in shifts.

BigFire

The launch crew's visual queue is not all for the pilot. Remember, the catapult operator (sitting in a semi-sunk control box), the tower (on the Island), the other folks around the deck all takes their queue from the launch crew and his visual signals. Launching a plane from the deck of a carrier is less about a pilot than everyone else around. Only after he's launched does he really take control.

Apple dodged all UK corporation tax in 2012

BigFire

Re: "revamp tax rules to close the loopholes"

Complex tax code favors those with the resource to exploit them. Just because you think you're taxing "THE MAN" doesn't mean you're doing squat.

James Bond inspires US bill to require smart guns for all

BigFire
FAIL

More Gun Grabber Tactics

Why would I trust my life in a hardware designed by my enemy? Why introduce another element that can screwed up when you actually need it?

Cook: Apple has 'no current plan' to pull profits out of Ireland

BigFire

IRS Would Like to Tax the World

If it can get away with that. That's pretty much the only way they can their paws on those money.

Apple is doing what is in its Fiduciary Duty to legally minimize tax expenditure to the benefit of its shareholder. To do otherwise will invite shareholder lawsuit. Seriously, if Congress want that money back, simply lower the tax rate of repatriation profit down to something like 5% and see those money roll back. 5% of something is infinitely greater than 35% of nothing.

Sun lets loose with THREE record eruptions in 24 hours

BigFire

Inconstant Moon

Go and read the short story Inconstant Moon by Larry Niven. It's the end of the world.

Ground control to major strum: ISS's Hadfield sings Space Oddity

BigFire
Thumb Up

While his singing voice is fine, his guitar need a bit of work. Still, Bowie didn't play his version while floating in space.

Red Hat renames JBoss application server as WildFly

BigFire
WTF?

This is not a joke?

April 1 was 21 days ago...

Forget value-added broker jokes: Could YOU shift nuclear plant scrap?

BigFire

I'm pretty sure for low enough price, we can recycle RS232 cable to some other purpose other than its original purpose. It only have to make economical sense.

BigFire

Economical

If it's economical to break down the component, it'll be done. Otherwise, it'll be dispose of.

China 'enhances' Great Firewall, teaches it to choke off VPNs

BigFire

Re: Not exactly business-friendly, is it?

Rule #1 for dictators in running a country: Preserve Your Own Poser by any means necessary.

There really isn't any other rules. So if it mess up people's ability to actually do business, so be it.

Google, Amazon, Starbucks are 'immoral' and 'ridiculous' over UK tax

BigFire

Re: Who wrote the laws

Nah. There are tax attorney and specialist whose sole function is to find legal method of avoiding tax.

What a clockup! Apple's Swiss clock knock-off clocks up $21m fine

BigFire

What's mine is mine, what's yours is mine

That seems to be Apple's attitude to everyone else's IP.

Google expects Apple to block its not crap iOS maps app

BigFire

Re: If Apple don't

Hey, you signed onto the privilege of using an Apple product. It's hip and it's the in thing. Who care if it didn't work?

Forget 'climate convert' Muller: Here's the real warming blockbuster

BigFire

Keeping thermometer next to the incinerator

DOES increase the temperature, who would've guess?

Twitter titsup: Our failover was actually just FAIL ALL OVER

BigFire

Re: I can imagine

booze and hookers? That's the usual explanation for embezzler.

Earthquakes will release captured carbon: Stanford study

BigFire

Sure it'll work

Just tax the 1% 110% of their net worth. Isn't that what this scam is all about?

US job creation stalls in March

BigFire

Actually it's worse.

The number such as it is only looks semi-ok because more people dropped out of the work force. That's the magic of statistics. Don't like how it comes up, stop counting some of the unemployed and you magically have reduction in unemployment

Climate-change scepticism must be 'treated', says enviro-sociologist

BigFire
FAIL

Lysenkoism

Hum. I'm pretty sure he's heard of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lysenkoism">Lysenkoism</a>? If not, there's a helpful link.

Scammers exploit new Dr Who girl with Twitter smut video

BigFire

Scammers Knows Their Mark

Hey, it worked before, it will definitely work again. The filthy mind of a mark is a wonderful thing.

Lightsquared cries dyslexic Havoc, unleashes 'gods of law'

BigFire
FAIL

Can lawyers over rule Laws of Physics?

Only in America would someone try to actually try to find that out.

Top Republican publishes full ACTA text for public look-see

BigFire

Re: You are forgetting something

Slight correction. Darrell Issa represents North San Diego / Riverside County. Nowhere near the Bay Area.

BigFire

Operation Fast & Furious

Darrell Issa is the thorn in Eric Holder (US Attorney General) and Barack Obama's side in his quest to get the truth regarding this Administration's undeclared war against Mexico and State of Arizona. Yeah, I'm not surprised at this turn of event.

LulzSec SMACKDOWN: Leader Sabu turned by feds last summer

BigFire

On the Dole

Note surprise that this guy is on public assistance. Why get a real job when the other job pays so well?

US Supremes: GPS tracking requires warrant

BigFire

Because the prosecutors decided that without warrant, placing GPS tracker on vehicle does not violate the 4th amendment protection. Without a valid warrant, they didn't have the right to do as they did.

Feds cuff coder accused of US bank source code swipe

BigFire
WTF?

Stupid

Regardless of how innocent his purpose is, doing this is just plain stupid. I'm sure that in his boilerplate contract, there are sections dealing with proprietary code and confidentiality. Plus this is coding for the Federal Reserve. I'm surprised that the NSA didn't just black bag him quietly and avoid the publicity.

Sprint grants LightSquared last-minute stay of execution

BigFire
Stop

Doubtful

This is just a nice legal pretax that Sprint uses to get out of the deal. 30 days won't be enough time for FCC to even begin to re-look at this turkey that's been grilled many ways. As Bones McCoy always said in Star Trek: "It's dead Jim".

Spanish firm brings 20MW solar ‘ranch’ online in Arizona

BigFire
Meh

Subsidy

The article didn't mention subsidy, and I've yet encountered a green project without one. So how much government subsidy did Iberdrola Renewables got from Department of Energy and the rest of the government entities?

Cheap gas is a 'crisis' for Greens, but not for us

BigFire

The Environmentalist is for all energy plans

except for the ones that works.

German boffins BREAK LAWS OF THERMODYNAMICS!

BigFire

That's still not breaking even in terms of Energy

So where's the breaking part?

Job creation better than expected in the US

BigFire

Sort of, kind of. 1/2 of the job creation is a result of Verizon workers going back to work. Factor that out and the picture (which wasn't pretty in the first place) gets much worse.

The real reason Google bought Motorola

BigFire

Fiduciary Responsibility

It's call Fiduciary Responsibility. Here's the Moody page http://www.efmoody.com/arbitration/fiduciary.html on its definition. ALL officers of public corporation are expected to follow it.

HP's WebOS mess: When smartphone assets go toxic

BigFire
FAIL

Epic Fail of An Article

Reading this 'article' actually reduced my intelligence. Seriously, I thought Register have more balance coverage than Apple fanboy. But apparently that's asking too much.

Amazon throws tax hissy-fit, dumps California affiliates

BigFire

Re: zippy

This is not about the sales tax increase that will expire tomorrow.

The California state government want to charge the sales tax across the board. Not that they'll actually get the money, as Amazon have demonstrated. The state will not collect on the income tax that the California bloggers will no longer be making. The sales tax won't be there since Amazon have terminated all California affiliate program. And Amazon will see a small drop in their sales, but will go on.

The morons at Sacramento just cannot stand the thought that someone somewhere in California is making money, and went out of their way to make sure that doesn't happen.

EU halts carbon trading after 'concerted' hack attacks

BigFire

Seriously, why do people actually pay money?

When you can get your indulgence for free at http://www.freecarbonoffsets.com. I ordered a couple of life time supply of Carbon Credit just the other day to make me feel better.

US opts out of carbon trading

BigFire

Carbon Trading = Scam & Tax

The whole point of global warming and carbon trading is to impose more tax and control. The next big scary world ending scam is biodiversity.

Consumer Reports: 'We were wrong about the iPhone 4'

BigFire
Happy

reality distortion field

Lets see how well Steve Job's "Reality Distortion Field" holds up. To the fanboys, nothing to see here. It's an Apple iPhone, what more do you need to know?

Sunny Spain suspends solar subsidy scam

BigFire
Thumb Down

The subsidy was so out of line

that it makes financial sense to hook up arc light and shine on the solar panel, indoor. Hell, one of these cheaters was caught only because he let his diesel generator that's tied to the 'green grid' to run day and night.