* Posts by Richard Plinston

2608 publicly visible posts • joined 27 Apr 2009

Astroboffins say our Solar System could have – wait, stop, what... the US govt found UFOs?

Richard Plinston

Re: Seriously, the god stuff?

> Really? Biologists are not scientists?

Name one _respected_ biologist that says that evolution is nonsense.

Richard Plinston

> Really? Everyone came out ok; no accidents, near-misses, surprises or anything like that, but it wasn't safe? No "pucker moments", no evasive braking or steering, nothing. Not safe?

That you survived is not proof that it was 'safe'.

> And yet, again, we have street races that top those speeds.

And the crashes indicate that these are not 'safe'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXAqCBYgAbM

https://www.stuff.co.nz/motoring/news/85423069/it-got-away-on-me--driver-tells-of-surviving-167kmh-crash-during-targa-rally

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=doLRUWNvJZs

https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=targa+rally+crash&client=firefox-b&dcr=0&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjZ25vr6LXYAhXEjZQKHbA-DmUQsAQIQw&biw=1147&bih=632

> You somehow think I have travelled at over 180k in unsafe and uncontrolled conditions.

I have not speculated on what conditions you have travelled in, I stated that 180kph is unsafe on NZ roads.

> However, we have many tight, winding gravel roads that have a posted limit of 100k.

No they do not have "posted limit of 100kph". That would be done with a disk with 100 in in. What they may have is a white disk with a diagonal black stripe which is the end of the current posted speed limit, the so called 'open road limit'. It is true that the maximum speed that can be driven is 100kph, but just because there is no 'posted limit' does not mean it is rated for 100kph.

http://www.nzta.govt.nz/resources/roadcode/about-limits/speed-limits/

> Set on the condition of the road? Try driving on NZ roads and see if you can honestly say that!

Does the last 50 years count?

> Re-align several Wellington streets, re-surface them

Actually that was in reference to the Hamilton race. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tXAqCBYgAbM at the one minute mark, do you think that striped line is a normal road marking? Are the barriers usually there ?

> 7 by my count (though after much hunting (not much in the way of reliable sources) only 2 may currently have that limit), them being :

You are imagining things again. There are _2_ with that new limit only just come into force. There are several other areas being _considered_, but none announced. Most of these are new sections, some not yet completed, some only planned.

> Southern Motorway (Bombay to Takanini) > Not unless you count 1970s as "new"

The section under consideration for 110kph will be available after around 2020.

"2018–2019 – Planning and design work to enable construction"

http://www.nzta.govt.nz/projects/sh1-papakura-to-bombay

You didn't search very hard.

> you have made assumptions about my driving experience and history which you got wrong.

You are imagining things again. Show me _anywhere_ that I made an assumption about your driving experience.

Richard Plinston

Re: Seriously, the god stuff?

> Can you present one proven example of changes necessary for microbe-man evolution? Just one?

Yes. The change from our common ancestor with chimpanzees to humans required that the number of chromosomes change from 48 to 46, that 24 pairs to 23 pairs. They went looking for a telomere in the middle of a chromosome and eventually found it in chromosome 2. This showed that 2 chromosomes had fused together giving humans 23 pairs.

Can you show your so called god's signature, or indeed any of the thousands of gods'. on anything he 'designed' ?

Richard Plinston

Re: Seriously, the god stuff?

> And yet there's a great many respected scientists who'll tell you that creationism fits the evidence far better than this evolution nonsense.

Except a) they are not 'scientists', they don't practice 'science*' and b) they are not 'respected', not by the actual scientific community.

* Science is a process that examines the evidence and comes up with a model that matches the evidence. That model is then tested by making predictions and then evaluating against actual results. 'Creationism' has no mechanism that can be tested, thus it is not, and cannot be, science.

Richard Plinston

Re: Flat Earth stuff

> Stuff that I found compelling: Evidence of fakery on the part of NASA (astronaughts on wires, blue-screen oddness on the ISS, no genuine photo's of Earth from high orbit etc.) ;

Certainly there are videos and photos of experiments, training, trials and simulations done by NASA and other agencies. Did you think they just put on a suit and went to space without training ?

Many images of Earth are taken from low orbit and are assembled from photo mosaics. These images are intended to show such things as weather patterns, they are not intended to be a representation of what the Earth would look like from, say, the moon, at a particular point in time, but are to convey the progress of clouds and storms. Taking images from low orbit means better resolution but must be assembled because each photo is only of a small area (in the thousands of square km).

What _is_ faked is by the Moon landing deniers. There are videos of the Moon lading that have had a rabbit added.

> gyroscopic anomalies that could indicate The Earth is not rotating.

https://www.metabunk.org/debunked-gyro-experiment-proves-motionless-earth.t7413/

> Now, one thing I would really like to do is perform a proper experiment to measure the curvature of the planet, because some people seem to have done experiments that appear to show there is a lot less than one would expect.

I live a few minutes walk from a beach and cliffs where there are offshore islands. I could do experiments every day with different sea, tide and atmospheric conditions, but even casual observations and simple calculations show that the Earth, and the sea, is not flat and is entirely in line with what has been known, in terms of size, for over two millennia.

As I live in the southern hemisphere and near the sea it is readily apparent from even casual observation that their flat-earth model fails in _every_ claim. This may not be clear to those that are land locked in the northern hemisphere, nor to those determined to believe in biblical 'truth'*.

> Now, one thing I would really like to do is perform a proper experiment to measure the curvature of the planet, because some people seem to have done experiments that appear to show there is a lot less than one would expect.

It may be useful for you to do that to satisfy your own curiosity, but you won't convince any flat-earther because they will claim that gravity bends light (even though the bending would be a) indistinguishable from none and b) would be in the wrong direction) or 'perspective' (used incompetently because they don't understand it).

https://www.physics.smu.edu/pseudo/FlatEarth/

* While Kiwi seems to imagine that the Bible presents, or at least hints at, a heliocentric system and a 'ball' earth, flat-earthers claim that the bible _proves_ the universe is geocentric with a flat earth and a domed, impenetrable 'firmament'. This merely demonstrates that the bible can be used to support _anything_ that you want it to, making it completely useless.

Richard Plinston

Re: Alien UFO's are Real - True / False...

> Do you also believe what Abraham Lincoln said about believe quotes on the internet?

I am not sure that Abraham Lincoln said _anything_ about "quotes on the internet", let alone to believe them.

But the problem might just be your inability to construct and punctuate a sentence.

The proposition that Moses did not _write_ anything is based on the fact that no such written Hebrew language existed at the time.

Textural evidence for Moses not being the author is such as:

http://www.mesacc.edu/~thoqh49081/handouts/torahclues.html

Richard Plinston

Re: Alien UFO's are Real - True / False...

> So how do they explain satellites in orbit, how GPS works, how compasses work, that we can measure our rotation relative to the moon, sun and planets, and more to the point how otherwise could you sail or fly round the planet?!

They don't. They don't explain. They just claim that _everyone_: the whole world, every government, every agency, every airline, shipping company, space agency, everyone; is in a conspiracy to 'hide the truth' that the world is flat (as allegedly stated in the Bible).

Richard Plinston

Re: Alien UFO's are Real - True / False...

> Most countries laws are based around the last 6 commandments.

And were _before_ there was a Moses (even if there was).

Richard Plinston

Re: Alien UFO's are Real - True / False...

> We exist, despite the odds of it.

In what way did you calculate the 'odds'? How many worlds did you examine in order to estimate the probability of life existing? Your assertion about the odds cannot be used as evidence - it is just an assertion.

> I believe that someone created everything by the use of knowledge.

And you have nothing to offer about how that 'someone' was magically created, nor how he got 'knowledge'. You have simply replaced a complex problem (how did the universe start) with two larger, more complex problems, first: how did 'someone' start?, second: how did he create the universe and from what?.

> someone exceptionally creative used their abilities to design and build these things for us.

Now there is the ultimate misrepresentation: _NOTHING_ is created, designed, made, or exists _for_us_. We are not, and have not been, the goal of any creation or evolution. The world exists as it happens to exist and life on it has had to evolve to suit the world as we find it and as it has changed. If the conditions had been different we may have been purple cuttlefish discussing how some greater being made the world that so perfectly suits us. This is the flaw in the 'made in our image' (note the plural) that leads biblical literalists to think that evolution _must_ have humans as its goal, and thus the 'odds against it'. There is NO goal. We are here at this time by entirely arbitrary mechanisms, the outcome was never assured.

> Hell, you even believe that dinosaurs died out millions of years before the first man came along despite abundant proof (cave drawings, figurines, carvings, eye witness accounts etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc) that man and dinosaurs lived together.

Complete nonsense, except in the loose meaning that avians are the descendants of early dinosaurs. There is no evidence of living dinosaurs (except avians) in the last 60 million years. You have been conned.

Richard Plinston

Re: Alien UFO's are Real - True / False...

> That no one was involved in a crash proves that it was done safely .

No it does not 'prove' that it was done safely at all.

> I know of people who have driven in residential areas legally at speeds over 200km/hr without driving police cars. Remember when we used to have the Mobil 1 (IIRC was a long time ago!) in Wellington? The Hamilton V8 street racing? (and no I am not claiming I was involved in any of these)

That was in very controlled conditions and only by drivers that were rated for those conditions. That is a very different thing than driving fast where other drivers of variable skill may appear. For those races the road was aligned and resurfaced with a special mix that was rated for the speeds of those cars and it was levelled to ensure safety. No other roads in NZ are made to those standards.

> Ah, you must be one of those who have downvoted me

Actually, no, I have never downvoted _anyone_, nor upvoted.

> Are you one of those people who thinks that "nothing bad will happen ...

> One of those people perhaps who believes ...

No. No.

> Oh. Because I know that our speed limit is arbitrary (that's why the government has just voted to raise it in certain areas!)

The speed limit is set based on the state of the road, its surface, its camber, curves, sight lines and many other issues. NO road is New Zealand is safe to be driven on at 180kph, not even by emergency services. You would be hard pressed to find tires that are rated to do 180kph, especially on the road surfaces found in NZ.

Two roads have upped the limit to 110kph because they are new roads specifically engineered for faster speeds than has been the practice in the past.

> What you have failed to notice is that I have not said half of what you imagine.

What you failed to notice is that I haven't imagined anything, I have only responded to exactly what you _said_. It is you that imagines things, such as me down voting, what you think I believe, or you being safe.

Richard Plinston

Re: Alien UFO's are Real - True / False...

> I can accept the idea that there may be a god. But not a god who is so needy that it needs us to worship and pray all the time, or follow all sorts of petty rules,

And yet that describes Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump and several others quite well. I can see that a warlord Jehovah (ie non-supernatural) could easily be the same.

Richard Plinston

Re: Alien UFO's are Real - True / False...

> but definitely worth digging for the nuggets that will stretch your mind.

Why would you want your mind stretched any thinner ?

Some commentators have suggested that the flat earth youtube videos are there purely as click bait to get ad revenue. The 'evidence' is very flawed and some is obviously faked. No one with two clues is going to be convinced, except maybe biblical literalists (because they lack or suppress critical skills).

Richard Plinston

Re: Alien UFO's are Real - True / False...

> You mean the writings of Moses

It is unlikely that Moses, even if there was such a person, wrote anything.

It is unlikely that any of the Torah was written down before 'First Temple' (~9th century BCE), mainly because there was no written form of Hebrew before then. Then the Torah was revised and 'unified' a few hundred years later from the various different versions.

https://www.haaretz.com/jewish/features/.premium-1.657492

But you will believe your dogma regardless.

Richard Plinston

Re: Guys!

> but the Bible makes mention of things hateful to those (and to flat-earthers)

The Bible makes geocentric and flat-earth references:

https://hypertextbook.com/eworld/geocentric/

Of course you, like everyone else, likes to be highly selective about what bits they use to support whatever various things they want to believe.

Richard Plinston

Re: Alien UFO's are Real - True / False...

> at speeds up to (and maybe over) 180km/hr, and my still being alive means I have safely travelled at such speeds on NZ roads

It means no such thing, it means that you are deluded.

Please send me a tweet when you are about to go driving so that I can stay off the roads.

While you may have survived so far, what you have failed to notice is that other road users will tend to treat you, in terms of making a prediction as to your future position, as if you were were at the speed limit or slightly above. They will estimate, for example, on seeing you that they have, say, 5 seconds before you arrive at their position. When it only takes 3 seconds they will still be in your way.

Richard Plinston

Re: Alien UFO's are Real - True / False...

> "Not a solid scrap of evidence to say that no god exists either. ..."

Many so called 'gods' most likely did exist. "Rastas" (Ras Tafari), the god of the rastafarians, certainly did exist - I have a photograph of him sitting next to my grandfather. Of course, like most 'gods', he was a powerful tribal leader, in fact he was later Emperor of Ethiopia. Many other 'gods' were the result of ancestor worship.

There is no reason to suppose that Jehovah, the god of the Jews and of the Bible, was any different. Forget Genesis, which is just a collection of stories, fables and myths adapted from other, earlier, religions and you are left with this tribal leader who met Moses up on a hill somewhere and granted him and his followers some land as long as they followed the rules, including only following him. They then went and slaughtered a few neighbouring cities because he was a warlord.

Usually, ancestral gods are replaced every few generations by later tribal leaders, but in the case of Jehovah there was a contract, the Covenant, that would grant the Jews their promised land. Changing to a later 'god' would break that.

In fact the previous generation of 'gods' in that part of the world was El, the god of the Canaanites and most likely the 'God of Abraham'. El had many sons or princes that were named Bael (or Baal) and often had the territory they ruled as part of their name, eg Bael-Zebub. In fact the Bible refers to the Elohim. This is a plural term that is usually taken to refer to 'gods' but may specifically refer to 'the family of El' indicating that Jehovah was another descendant of El*.

So, yes, 'gods' existed and, in some communities may still exist (as living people)**, but there is no reason to believe that any of them were supernatural.

* Israel is usually taken to mean 'God prevails' but in fact refers directly to the god El, Jehovah's predecessor.

** Phil the Greek, for example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Philip_Movement

Richard Plinston

Re: Alien UFO's are Real - True / False...

> the Torah, which the bible is only a small part of...

_Some_ of the bible is a part of, some is not.

Richard Plinston

Re: Alien UFO's are Real - True / False...

> something that clearly doesn't happen easily (or it would presumably have happened again, probably multiple times).

It may well have happened millions of times, but once it had happened the times that came afterwards merely produced food for the earlier organisms.

Richard Plinston

Re: Alien UFO's are Real - True / False...

> Prior to the BB, spacetime did not exist.

It is impossible to say anything about "prior to the BB". Space-Time may have existed, or it may have been something quite different, or there may have been no 'prior'. Making a claim, as you have done, requires evidence - and there is none and there may never be.

> If so, that being must be our god.

Why _must_ it be your 'god' ? (it certainly isn't mine). Why must it be any 'god' ? The universe is not limited by your lack of imagination.

Windows Store nixed Google Chrome 'app' hours after it went live

Richard Plinston

> How come Google is willing to use Apple's web engine to get on iOS devices but is not willing to use the Edge engine to get on Microsoft's store? Why the different stances in two similar situations?

As has been already answered: Chrome and Safari both use WebKit derived browser engines so there was almost zero effort in getting Chrome to use 'Apple's web engine' - it is the _same_ engine (though Google added some enhancements to make WebKit into Blink).

> In 10 S, apps can ONLY come from the Store, which means if Chrome can't get on the Store, they're SOL.

It is the 10 S _users_ that are SOL. They are stuck with Edge only.

Richard Plinston

> So how come Google is willing to use the Safari engine on an iPhone but isn't willing to use the Edge engine on Windows Phone, given the circumstances are similar?

Because both Safari and Chrome renderers are based on WebKit (which itself is derived from KHTML from the KDE project used by Konqueror and others).

Also "Windows Phone" never ran Edge, Windows 10 Mobile is dead. This is about Windows Store for Windows 10 desktop and Chrome does not need to be in the store because it can be downloaded from Google.

Richard Plinston

Re: snub the platform by withholding big-name apps like YouTube and Google Maps

> Google blocked the (pretty good) MS supplied YouTube app because it wasn't written in HTML5.

No. Google blocked it because the MS app broached the site's terms of service.

> The Google maps website is pretty unusable on Windows Phone too.

Google makes money from ads. The more users it has, the more money it makes. Google does not make money from Android or Chrome (except that they are Google users). Thus, it is quite happy to have Windows users, Windows Phone users, iOS and MacOS users access its sites so it can send ads to them.

It makes no sense for Google to block _any_ access that users may make, except where the terms of service are broken. It does make sense that Microsoft wants to direct users to its own sites or otherwise prevent Google from making money.

Republican tax bill ready to rescue hard-up tech giants, struggling rich

Richard Plinston

Re: Tax cuts for everyone

> The political left describes *any* GOP tax reform as "tax cuts for the rich" regardless of what the bill actually says.

The bill gives >80% of the benefit to the top 1 or 2%.

Richard Plinston

Re: Obamacare individual mandate

> Insurance companies will offer plans that people CAN afford and are willing to buy, because they do NOT have to comply with some ridiculous federal requirement. This includes "emergency only" and high-deductible catastrophic plans.

The major problem with American system is that it is the health care providers (hospitals, doctors, etc) that are setting the amount of revenue that they want and this must come from the users either directly or via the insurance companies or the government through taxes. There is nothing that limits the health care demand for revenue.

Having insurance providers between the carers (as if they actually care) and the users merely adds a markup to the costs, though it does average out the risks.

Removing the 'ridiculous federal requirements' allows, as you say, for cheaper plans that do not cover particular health problems. In doing so it makes insuring for those problems completely unaffordable because the risk is spread over far fewer potential insured. This leads to even fewer people buying insurance, or people buying less effective insurance, until the whole system collapses.

> This includes "emergency only"

If the only insurance you have is 'emergency only' then _everything_ becomes an 'emergency'. The insurance companies know this and will charge appropriately (ie unaffordably).

Richard Plinston

Re: Obamacare individual mandate

> Republicans are getting rid of the Obamacare individual mandate which was literally a tax on people like me who are too poor to afford health insurance.

And after the individual mandate is dropped, and those who think they will never get sick drop their insurance, there will be few left who will be able to afford the increased rates for health insurance that will result. Medicare and Medicaid will be dumped and no one but the very rich will be able afford medical care.

> President Trump has my vote next election.

You think that there will be a 'next election'? Trump is creating many opportunities for disasters and emergencies* that will 'justify' him (and his dynasty) being made President For Life.

* North Korea, Israel, rest of UN, internal civil war, etc.

Richard Plinston

Re: Hate much?

> Somehow this will benefit the average American by $4000 / year

There was a claim about $4,000 average, but it wasn't about the 'average American', it was the 'average tax cut'.

If there are 250 households, one gets a cut of $1,000,000 and 249 get nothing, then the average is $4,000 per household.

America's drone owner database is baaaack! Just in time for Xmas

Richard Plinston

Re: That's funny

> How many people do drones kill every day?

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jan/24/isis-drone-dropping-precision-bombs-alarms-us-mili/

Richard Plinston

Re: No Worries

> When a drone is flying it is more or less weightless

If a drone is flying a few mm above a large plate of a weighing machine then the machine will indicate the drones weight, more or less.

It is only flying because it accelerates air downwards to create a sufficient force to counter its own weight.

If you had a closed box full of canaries would it weigh less if the birds were flying about inside the box ?

Trump to NASA: Fly me (or some other guys) to the Moon

Richard Plinston

Re: Obviously this guy wants to emulate JFK

> To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”

The real problem is that he is not "doing the job", he is doing something else entirely, something that won't become apparent to his supporters for some time, and then it will be too late.

Blighty flogs Qatar a bunch of missiles and Typhoon fighter jets

Richard Plinston

> Steam requires nuclear.

And yet British carriers have used steam catapaults since 1950 without a trace of nuclear.

In fact the discussions were based on installing electric catapaults. Also BAe claim they can build a Naval Typhoon that can operate from a ski jump.

Richard Plinston

Re: Good answers

> As they make a navalised typhoon I assumed it was suitable for aircraft carriers. http://defense-update.com/20110210_naval_typhoon.html

Models and "simulation tests" do not constitute "make" in the present tense.

Hitchcock cameo steals opening of Oracle v Google Java spat

Richard Plinston

Re: The solution for Google

> Erm, no. Microsoft don't sell any Android devices.

Microsoft did sell Android devices..

Nokia developed a couple of Android phones under the name Nokia-X just before they sold to Microsoft. These continued to be made and sold, briefly, as Microsoft-X after the buyout.

https://www.theverge.com/2014/2/24/5440498/nokia-x-android-phone-hands-on

Richard Plinston

> rewinding programming languages back to BCPL or before.

BCPL is Basic* Combined Programming Language, is a cut down derivative from CPL, which was a concoction of elements from several previous languages including (IIRC) APL (Atlas Programming Language) and ACL (Atlas Commercial Language).

* Basic in the 'fundamental' sense and nothing to do with BASIC.

Once again, UK doesn't rule out buying F-35A fighter jets

Richard Plinston

Re: Why go totally F-35?

> The Ruskies solved this by air-to-air refuelling. They have expensive "buddy" fighters converted to this role, which also have to be carrier launched and have limited range.

The Royal Navy had been doing that with Scimitars and Buccaneers before the Russians even had a carrier.

Richard Plinston

> Your squadron that is rotated on leave does not need aircraft!

How do they get to Spain then ?

Richard Plinston

Re: Why go totally F-35?

> If a Sea Hornet couldn't do an unassisted take-off from a deck the length of the QE Class I'd be stunned.

It may be able to do that when it has no stores, but put a few bombs on it and its range beyond the bow will be measured in metres.

Lap-slabtop-mobes with Snapdragon Arm CPUs running Windows 10: We had a quick gander

Richard Plinston

> To be fair, it's not as if it would kill Google to add Chrome to the Windows App store.

You appear to be expecting that Microsoft will allow competing products (browsers, office suites) into the App store.

Richard Plinston

Re: Emulation ?

> Perhaps it's only with Win 10 Pro but I think you can run any x86 programs you want.

Win10S certainly does not run "any x86 program that you want", only what is in the store. The Snapdragon does run x86, but only 32 bit. x86-64 does not run.

Get ready for laptop-tab-smartphone threesomes from Microsoft, Lenovo, HP, Asus, Qualcomm

Richard Plinston

> When Apple moved its systems from 680x0 to PowerPC back in the 1990s

Yes, but the PowerPC was several times the performance of any 680x0.

Richard Plinston

Re: So...

> This new device will emulate the x86

Only 32bit, not x86-64, and who does that any more ?

Forget Sesame Street, scientists pretty much watched Big Bird evolve on Galápagos island

Richard Plinston

> the most important factor was cross-fertility,

There are many married couples who cannot have children, does this make them different species ?

Windows on ARM: It's nearly here (again)

Richard Plinston

Re: Power

> Well Windows Server does tend to outperform say Linux in most benchmarks these days. Especially very high end requirements like dedicated low latency interconnects etc.

Which is obviously why there are so many supercomputer in the top 500 using Windows, given that interconnects are what they are all about. Oh wait, there are zero since 2015.

> And as far as I know you don't have options like SMB DIrect (SMB over RDMA) on Linux...

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samba_(software) SMB 3, which includes SMB over RDMA, was introduced in Samba 4.1 in October 2013.

Richard Plinston

Re: Native code good, x86 emulation bad

> It's an order of magnitude easier to install Windows + IIS.

You think that it is easier than one command ?

https://www.storagecraft.com/blog/install-lamp-server-linux-mint-18-command/

Richard Plinston

Re: Native code good, x86 emulation bad

> Yawn. % of sites was always the figure quoted when Apache was leading. LOL @ strangely how now it's not good enough...

It is "not good enough" because Microsoft went on a campaign to wrought the figures by paying hosting sites to put all their parked domains onto Windows servers, probably with Microsoft supplying the server to put these on. This bumped up the "% of sites" to, as you say, 50%, but the vast majority had no content and no traffic.

> However Microsoft IIS also has a 10% share of the top 1 million busiest sites,

Down from 20% a decade ago, and falling.

Microsoft's market share of computers (as distinct from sites) has also halved in the last decade.

Richard Plinston

Re: Native code good, x86 emulation bad

> According to Netcraft ~ 50% of Internet websites now run IIS on Windows so if there was a significant security issue I think we would have seen it by now!

"""While more than half of the websites in the survey are using Microsoft web server software, relatively few of these are active sites. Discounting link farms, domain holding pages and other automatically generated content, Microsoft accounts for only 7.3% of all active sites, while Apache leads with 44.9%, and nginx follows with 20.7%. Microsoft's active sites share has never exceeded Apache's, and ever since it peaked at 38% in early 2009, it has experienced a general decline."""

https://news.netcraft.com/archives/2017/09/11/september-2017-web-server-survey.html

IIS is the perfect webserver if you have no content and no visitors.

Richard Plinston

> or a arm box running windows native on a x86 emulator slowly

Note that the ARM x86 emulator will only run 32bit x86 and not AMDx86-64.

Some years ago Microsoft announced that there would be "no more 32bit versions of Windows". Of course they still do have 32bit versions, but many software companies switched entirely to 64bit only. Now, are they able and willing to revert to 32bit versions just to run on slow ARM emulation ?

Windows Update borks elderly printers in typical Patch Tuesday style

Richard Plinston

Re: NCR

> Time even before that there was actual carbon paper.

I wonder if anyone remembers decollators and bursters. My earliest time working with computers nearly 50 years ago included running these to separate the carbon paper from the multipart forms and then turning the invoices and statements from continuous paper into individual forms at the rate of hundreds per minute.

Some one else ran the envelope stuffer.

Richard Plinston

Re: backward compatibility NOT a thing with Micro-shaft

> That's because stubborn bastards in Finance and accounting departments refuse to join the 21st century.

It is nothing to do with 'Finance and Accounting". The dot matrix printers are in the warehouses to print out the legally required 4 part Hazardous materials forms, delivery dockets, manifests, customs forms and other necessary paperwork.

Jet packs are real – and inventor just broke world speed record in it

Richard Plinston

Re: Baffled

> A jet engine need not have a turbine.

It does unless there is some other mechanism to get it up to a few hundred kph*.

* Argus tubes (see V1) require about 200kph before they produce thrust, the V1 was fired from a ramp using steam or similar, or dropped from a plane. Ramjets need to be quite a bit faster than that before they work.

Richard Plinston

Re: Duration?

"To stay aloft, you need to provide 9.8m/s^2 * the mass of the object to be kept aloft, of thrust. That's quite a bit."

> the vast majority of aircraft are incapable of that,

Actually, _every_ aircraft _must_ do that, otherwise it is not an aircraft. Most do so by using the wings as a pump that shifts air from above the craft to below it but somewhat behind. This requires the aircraft be at some particular speed or faster (depending on many factors). If it goes too slow the pumping action is inadequate and the craft becomes a groundcraft quite soon.

> and Harrier was the first to be able to take off vertically without helicopter rotors.

No. Not even close: Ryan X-13, Short SC-1, Convair XFY-1 Pogo, P.1127, Kestrel, ...