Posts by I ain't Spartacus

Re: Sanctions

Sanctions can work. Iran is negotiating over its nuclear program, because it wants access to Western finance and capital markets - and access to parts for its oil industry.

I think, in general, sanctions can work over countries that aren't total dictatorships. Russia isn't a true democracy, given there's little media freedom, most media is government controlled, people are barred from elections on political grounds, the courts are only partially independent etc. But there is limited freedom and democracy isn't just a pretence. Public opinion does matter, and demonstrators aren't shot on sight. Russia is quite similar to Iran in some respects, there is a genuine democratic system, it's just very limited.

If Russia's economy collapses, then Putin's whole narrative about how he restricted the peoples' freedom in exchange for stability and economic improvement might fall apart. Perhaps he can fall back on nationalism, and how it's OK to suffer for being powerful. Maybe that'll work, maybe it won't. Russians tend to be nationalist/patriotic (delete as you see fit), but does Putin want to take that risk for a bit of Ukraine with some outdated industry? Or the whole of Ukraine and a subject population of 30m odd, to buy off or crush militarily?

The oil technology and capital that Russia needs is mostly going to come from Europe and the US. While Russia can source other products from elsewhere, and get round sanctions, they'll struggle with those two. As has Iran. Remember that even the Russian oligarchs don't trust the Russian legal system, so they keep their cash in the West. Why would anyone else invest in Russia when its own leaders don't? Which is why so much of their borrowing is done in Westerm markets, mainly London, under more trustworthy legal systems. There are plenty of countries with money to lend, but they also like not to have it stolen, which is why they often do their investing via London or New York.

Re: 'the Iranian nuclear weapons programme'

Pull the other one, it has got bells on it.

They may not have the ultimate intention of building a bomb, it's almost impossible to prove intentions, particularly in a dictatorship. Which is why intelligence deals with capabilities. They have a rocket program (space or ICBM). They built a secret uranium enrichment site, hardened against military attack, and failed to declare it to the IAEA as they are supposed to by a treay they signed (NNPT). They have been working on precision triggering of explosives, also required for nukes - and I'm not even sure if that has a civilian use. That's also from the IAEA reports. They've also refused to dismantle their uranium enrichment program when offered treaty-guaranteed cheaper nuclear fuel deals from Russia (who're building their reactor), paid for by the US.

So even if they don't have a nuclear weapons program (which they patently obviously do), they've been doing everything to make people think that they have a nuclear weapons program.

There's a theory that the Iranian leadership want the ability to build a bomb, without actually doing it. Then they can have the threat of it, without the consequences, or use it as a bargaining chip for something they want. But if true, that policy is indistinguishable from planning to build a bomb, so the response ends up being the same.

Negotiation is hard when you cheat, and then get caught. It'll be incredibly tough to get a solution to the Ukraine crisis, because Putin has blatantly, and often contemptuously, lied at every stage of the conflict. So no one is going to trust him - which makes it hard to come to any deal.

Iran has a similar problem. No-one believes its denials about its nuclear program because it's broken the terms of its treaty saying it wouldn't develop nuclear weapons, and then says it only broke the treaty in order to develop a civilian nuclear program in secret. And none of the secret stuff was military, honest guv.

Lying poisons diplomacy. If Blair and Bush had said we're going to war with Iraq for reasons of policy there'd have been much fewer problems. There were plenty of justifications to use, but none that would get a UN resolution. Going the chemical weapons route, when there was little intelligence about the state of the program was a huge risk. Everyone knew the UN had only destroyed about 80% of Iraq's stocks in the 90s, and they still had the scientists and knowledge to make more. But basing so much on such limited intelligence, and being wrong, has done massive damage to the credibility of the US and UK. And has buggered-up international diplomacy for at least the 2 decades.

True with TV. But I was actually thinking journalists, epsecially the print ones. Who write copy on computers and tablets, have smartphones, are always pirating copy off Facebook and Twitter, plus whatever photos or blogs they can grab. And all busily Googling and Wiki-ing as well. You'd hope that a little bit of knowledge would rub off in this process...

Re: salaried employees

I think you've somewhat missed the point The salaried engineers create the software, the unpaid user community are expected to use it. Question is, who runs the railroad?

Re: 3D printing of plastic is not going to save anyone

A plastic part that keeps you alive for a couple of days is worth 100 metal parts, rated for the full mission duration, that you don't have.

Completely different tolerances, but we prototyped a float-valve on a 3-D printer. It worked for a whole day before falling apart. Which was perfect as a proof of concept, before going on to the more expensive prototyping stages.

Re: I'm with Autor

I'd disagree with you on cloud not having a huge productivity effect. Or at least the potential for large impact. There is still a very large section of business that has only partially computerised. This is the small business sector. Companies too small to manage IT, even when they could afford it.

Cloud CRM is now available, and although this is a bit of a time-sink, can be incredibly powerful for some companies. Cooperation, communication and sharing tools, only previously available to big companies, can allow a lot more working from home. I know this, because these are things that my small company does. Which means we spend more on IT than we do on our office. Theoretically, we could ditch the office. But it's nice to meet for real sometimes.

There's an awful lot of new areas that computers might take over. For example, 90% of the building services industry is still managed by blokes turning things on and off. Or increasingly, not doing so. As caretakers and maintenance seem to have been dropped in the hopes that magic fairies will keep all the plant maintained.

...Some people may appreciate the fact that my auto-correct has replaced cloud with clown, every time i've used it in this post...

Re: "pre-human ape-men"

Surely it would have been too confusing had the Denisovans won out. An entire world population called Dennis? I'm Dennis, and so is my wife...

Re: No Commander Shepard / mixed bag of aliens on the winning side?

The Knnn have got to be good. And whatever the aliens are called in 'Hunter of Worlds'. Plus we have the Kif and the Mri for hand-to-hand (plus teeth) nastiness.

But the most dangerous of the lot has surely got to be the nighthorses. If they ever hear that bacon is available throughout the universe, I'm sure they'll soon 'persuade' some pilots to get them into space...

Re: Even though they're highly skilled at that...

Martian research scientists will spend years trying to work out which is the 'any' key, then give up and assume that humans are irretrevable stupid and not worth contacting. Or worse, easy to defeat, and so launch their invasion.

Re: No...

Most people still have better comprehension from reading data than from hearing it. So assistants are fine for simple yes/no questions, but once things get complicated, you're better off seeing a table/map/diagram/text.

My train and bus companies have perfectly servicable we sites. But on my phone, I use the app, becuase it concentrates the stuff I want when mobile into a smaller screen space. Gives me instant links to things like the live train/bus departure boards. And can use my location too, if I choose to allow it.

Some apps also allow you to download data, for when you're offline. A problem that will reduce, but I can't see going away for many decades.

Re: You know inventory day is approaching ...

I remember an interview with someone at London Zoo. Apparently all zoos in Europe do their stocktake on 1st January. Can't remember if it's EU rules,or a global thing, so they can keep tabs on all the breeding programs. Easy to count elephants. But with stick insects they had to have someone sit and watch the tanks for a couple of hours and guesstimate...

The stock-take at Erfert Zoo in 2007 revealed that the keepers had been killing the animals and selling them to locals for barbecues. Mostly it seemed to be petting zoo type stuff, like goats, deer, antelopes etc. But someone apparently got to try anteater.

I have eaten zebra once. I wonder if I ought to have checked up on the source? It tastes like minty horse...

Re: When history is written

Do you have any evidence for that claim about Gordon Brown?

My recollection of events was that Barclays were after buying out Lehman Brothers globally, but wanted some quite large treasury guarantees. Which UK government refused. Perfectly understandably, as no-one had a clue what the risk was. So in the end Barclays bought Lehman's US arm afterwards instead - taking much less of the risk.

The US had already decided to let Lehman go bust, as a salutary lesson. A large mistake as it turned out. I'd imagine that the UK government position was why should we bail out a US bank if they're not going to?

I remember reading subsequently about this, and noting that the US guys they interviewed were rather bitter about the Barclays deal not going through. And so blamed the Treasury. But I'm not sure if that isn't revisionism - because as I understand it the Barclays deal only came about because the US had already decided not to bail Lehman out.

Also the crisis would still have been very serious anyway. See the Eurozone for why. The banks were totally fucked, in various ways. They'd been out of control for too long. They'd taken on too much risk, they'd been committing various frauds, the UK interest-rate swaps and PPI misselling bill is going to come to something like £20-£25 billion! Even without Lehmans, the interbank market had frozen up, because all the banks knew all the others were loaded with toxic debt. Because none of them would admit the amounts, none of them could trust each other. The Eurozone was a house of cards, waiting for a recession to destroy it, the Eurozone banking system was also fucked, although for different reasons. They'd taken on some of our and the US's crap assets, but mostly what's destroyed their banking system is cross-border lending into property markets they didn't understand, political interference with local banks (Landesbanks and Cajas in particular) and all the toxic government debt.

Banking recessions are always going to be awful, because so many companies get finance from banks, so when they're shrinking their balance sheets it's almost impossible to kick-start recovery. Lehmans was the trigger which brought the crisis on, but in the end the banking sectors in the US, UK and Europe were teetering on the edge of collapse, and couldn't be saved without huge infusions of government cash. That meant they'd have to de-leverage, and that meant a massive recession. The rest was just timing.

Re: They are not insured, for a good reason

Isn't this the second and third satellited they've lost, out of the first 6 launched? I believe one of the earlier ones didn't work, although it's possible these two can be salvaged. But it's a bit sad to have lost half of the reserve of 6, in the first year of the program. On the other hand, out of 15 launches you'd expect to lose at least one, no-one's got a perfect record. It's almost as if rocket science was hard...

Re: Pointless idea

Nuking carrier groups has been a part of military planning since at least the 1960s. Tactical nukes were designed for relatively small, high-value targets. Whether they be Warsaw Pact bridgeheads over German rivers, NATO carrier groups, airbases or rail junctions.

Admittedly nuking a significant target and destroying $100bn worth of enemy shiny-shiny, along with killing say 10,000 of their personnel, is not likely to end well. Particularly if that nation is equipped with strategic nuclear weapons, not to mention tactical ones of its own.

Then again, by the 70s, most NATO planning for the Central European front pretty much admitted that it was either lose, or resort to nuking the Soviet spearheads within just a few days of the war starting. So part of the plan was that you act as if you'd go nuclear in your normal battle-planning, thus the other side knew that even starting a purely conventional war was a big step in nuclear escalation.

This may be China's tactic with the US? We might admit that our navy and airforce can't defeat yours, but we think this conflict is so important that we'll simply ensure we win it by going tactical nuclear, and inflict unacceptable casualties on you. Then your choice will be nuclear escalation or humiliating surrender. As neither of those are appealing, you'd better either develop a counter to getting your carrier groups nuked, or keep your nose out.

As with Russia, it's hard to know what the Chinese think their own national interest is. They're involved in as many border disputes as Russia, but the Russian ones are mostly about nationalism and ex-Soviet Russian populations abroad. Whereas the Chinese ones seem to mostly be about off-shore oil and gas. I don't think they're interested in their various land-border disputes, like they were last century. Obviously the exception here is Taiwan. On the other hand, both countries' economies are massively reliant on global markets and international trade, so even creating international tension costs them money and the economic stablity that they require to keep their populations happy and avoid potentially getting chucked out of power.