Posts by I ain't Spartacus

Going back to the Bezos and Dynetics complaints, do they honestly expect the world to hang around while they play catch up?

To be fair to Bezos, the original NASA idea was that the moon landing contract was going to have more than one winner. But Congress didn't give them the funding the requested, so they chose to cut the program to be a winner-takes-all halfway through. And who can blame them for going with SpaceX, who've met all their other COTS contracts? The GAO appeal established that NASA had said in advance that multiple awards was dependent on funding, so changing it was fine.

In the previous COTS contracts there was some up-front money for design / early production, and then if it looked good you got awarded some future contracts - which you'd obviously only get paid on if you complete.

So for example Boeing are being paid more per crew launch to the ISS than SpaceX - which is funny because the Boeing one still doesn't work. However NASA only paid for one test flight, so Boeing are having to fund this month's themselves, having fucked up the last one so badly. And of course, if NASA don't OK it, they'll just tell Boeing to bugger off, and can give those other missions to SpaceX. Which must look tempting, given they're cheaper.

With the cargo deliveries to the ISS they went to SpaceX and Orbital (with Cygnus / Antares). Both blew up one payload, though at least SpaceX had the good grace not to total the launch complex as well...

Re: Weird Case

They’ll do 70mph on the road. But there’ll probably not be much road left after you’ve done it. Still 13 tonnes too, so not that much weight difference from a Panther.

Re: WTF?

small and stupid,

Well the Marxist historians aren't so against the idea of an inevitable path of history. They just don't like that particular version. Their's is no less stupid of course.

But there are certainly some differences in what happened in say England and France that do seem to explain why their political systems evolved so differently. Obviously it's a bit bloody odd celebrating what a great system you have and how your people are free compared to those poor frenchies, subject to the tyranny of Kings un-restrained by Parliament. While at the same time your country runs a massive global empire, subjugating all those people under your tyranny, without representation.

Re: WTF?

ibmalone,

Sort of true. But that was after James had been captured (to William's obvious embarassment) and sent (allowed to escape again) on his way to exile in France.

It wasn't until the next year he went back to Ireland and raised an army. The year after he was defeated at the Boyne and left.

Although as the Irish Parliament had refused to crown William and Mary and kept faith with James, you could call it a civil war. Or you could say that William was given the kingship of England and Scotland but conquered Ireland.

Re: Weird Case

There was a guy in the late 80s in central London, who bought an army surplus Scorpion light tank. Painted it bright yellow, and used to drive round town in it. As you do...

Re: WTF?

With big guns and tank guns in collections they're supposed to be de-activated. Which means some combination of pouring concrete into them and sticking spikes through the breech.

Similarly you shouldn't have machineguns that haven't been deactivated, unless you've got a firearms license - that you may not even be able to get for personal use.

Re: WTF?

Particularly as the Germans were forgiven most of their war debts in the Dawes Plan in 1924.

Also King George was pretty much irrelevant as a political force. The last of the serious royal power ebbed away through the 19th Century - the monarchy never recovered from George III's illness. Making the politicians much more important.

Even Keiser Bill wasn't an absolute monarch. Though he was genuinely politically important and was often steering the ship. Had he been better at politics he could have had much more control of German politics. But he wasn't, and he didn't have politicians of the stature of Bismarck to help (at least not after he sacked him).

Basically ignore any history documentary that starts off talking about WWI as a "cousins' war" or some such crap. There weren't many absolute monarchs left. And Nicholas II of Czar of all the Russias wasn't exactly running a tight ship.

Re: Most Brits have a fair idea of Germany before, during and after WW2.

Even back then though, we didn't cover the EEC in history. We didn't cover much European history at all, except as it related to conflicts with England or the UK, unless you go back to ancient Roman and Greek times.

It's a mistake to think that everyone learned the same as you at school.

The English and Welsh education system is not uniform. The syllabus you cover is dependent upon the exam board your school picks, and the bits of it that your teacher chooses to teach. Or at least it used to be back in the early 90s, when I did A Level history - and although there have been changes since I think it's still true.

I happened to do papers from both the Oxford and Cambridge exam boards, and there were quite big differences. Plus my brother did mostly late Medieval and Early Modern (Tudor) history for his A Level.

If I remember right, Oxford was 1800-1914 European and British political and economic history with a bit of extra British social history. Obviously more detail on the British bits.

Whereas Cambridge went up to 1945 and had more political/diplomatic/military history and less economic and social.

Re: WTF?

batfink,

It depends. In England they say William was invited. However I noticed when I was in Scotland last week that there it's referred to as an "invasion".

It's a bit of both. So I think gives people an opportunity to be all revisionist in their history - and modern takes on revisionist history are often indistinguishable from trolling...

After all, he brought a massive army with him - and there was nearly a battle - although much of James II's troops had already buggered off at that point. So it never happened.

On the other hand, William didn't rule in his own right. He was joint head of state, his wife Mary II was jointly reigning, rather than just being his Queen. And Mary was the daughter of James II, but crucially protestant (like William). James being basically catholic was ignorable, as she was his heir, right up until the point he had a son - which was one of the triggers (probably the main trigger) of the people who invited William to invade.

Also, William had to agree to the Bill of Rights before Parliament would appoint him monarch. Which was much more than they'd got from Charles II to return as King after the civil war. Even though he was occupying the capital with his large army at the time, so he clearly didn't act like he'd won a war of conquest.

But I think it's become fashionable to call it an invasion, as a way at having a go at people you don't like.

And of course, calling it the "Glorious Revolution" is all part of the idea of Whig History - which is the old school of history where everything is described as this path of the inevitable path of English greatness - where the progress of English history leads to this great constitutional monarchy with a strong parliamentary, liberal state institutions (by the standards of the 18th/19th Century anyway), lovely delicious empire and free global trade. Plus massive fuck-off navy (and not to mention regularly trouncing the French of course...).

That school of history gets right up some people's noses, even though it's a couple of hundred years old - but still has influence on modern historical thinking. It also has the unfortunate aspect of being at least a somewhat accurate description of events - which I think really gets on the more left wing historians' tits...

Re: Time flies

You mean the footage that Assange edited, to hide the fact that the people with the journalists had RPGs? That footage? That he called "Collatoeral Murder"? The one where the helicopter gunner screams out RPG (which sadly was actuallly the camera pointing round the side of the building) and then engages it? I mean he might have been a really good actor - except that both of them came across as gung-ho idiots. The one where the helicopter was flank guard for a convoy that was under attack at the time.

Because if you do, the reason nobody went to prison is that no crime was committed. They engaged armed people, in a combat zone, believing they were under attack.

They may well have used excessive force. There's a bit (that Assange also cut out) at the end where they fire into a building after some armed guys have gone inside it. But not knowing who (or what) else was in there - they probably shouldn't have. That might be a breach of their rules of engagement - and I've even seen a US academic lawyer argue that that might actually come close to a war crime, but the bit at the beginning of the video was just a fuck-up in a combat zone. And as much the cameraman's fault as the helicopter crew's.

Re: use of different signatures

Nope. Embassies are not sovereign territory.

They are treaty-mandated protected areas inside other countries. In this case the Vienna Conventions. Once an embassy is granted the host country can only enter with the permission of the ambassador or their government.

Re: Journalist prosecution

I don't give a flying fuck what Assange was "prepared" to do. The law states that he should have stayed in Sweden to face and charge and arrest. He ran. He got caught in the UK under a European Arrest Warrant. He got his day in court, he lost. He got an appeal. He lost. He appealed again, which was allowed as I think it was the first big test case of the new EAW system. He lost. The court ruled that he was accused of rape and that this was equivalent to the crime in the UK and that he'd have been extradited under the old system too.

He ran away again. This time to spend 7 years in an embassy. Now he's done the time for his bail jumping and is still there because of running twice before. Had he stuck to his bail conditions he'd be out on bail now too. In this case awaiting the US appeal, because they can't extradite him. As he's had about 5 appeals in this country, he's no right to complain if other litigants have a go too...

Re: use of different signatures

Seems very odd. There can't be any doubt of his identity - he was in their embassy for 7 bloody years. You'd have thought the people processing it might just recognise him by that point...

However, who'd be surprised if he'd lied about some documents - which is a nice excuse to reverse an embarassing mistake they made. Seems a bit harsh though to blame him for not living in Ecuador in order to keep his citizenship. It's not like he's had much choice of accommodation, since they kicked him out of the embassy.

Re: Journalist prosecution

Swedish law apparently requires you to be interviewed before you can be charged. You're then charged at that interview. He was clearly not considered a flight risk by the Swedes - as they texted his lawyer the night he fled the country - to come in for a charge interview the next morning. The lawyer denied this in one of the UK hearings and then was forced to produce his phone and show the text message still on there.

At which point they issued the European arrest warrant.

Re: Ah yes,

How do you know he can't buy his way round the rules? He hasn't tried... Yet...

Re: Alas, here we go again...

I did A Level History in 1990-92. Our syllabus was European economic and political history from 1789-1945. The themes we covered were the Congress of Vienna (not the Napoleonic Wars) and the diplomatic system that followed it for much of the 19th Century - ending with a bit of the start of WW1 and Imperialism in Africa. Italian and German unification. British politics up to WW1. And finally the industrial revolution in Europe and its social effects in Britain in the 19th C.

There's an awful lot of German history in there, and no mention of Nazis. I think we did the Oxford exam board. Our German history textbook even had a brand new cover and a hastily written final chapter on German reunification in 1989-90. But we pretty much stopped in 1914.

Although I did do a Cambridge exam board paper, which had loads of WWII.

My brother got medieval to early modern history for his A Level with all the Henries and up to the Civil War.

Re: a quote from American journalist David Fairbanks White, …

Pseudononymous Coward,

I strongly disagree that it's a pernicious myth that Britain stood alone.

Partly just from the practical sense that people said it at the time, but were pretty loose in their terminology. Saying Britain when they meant the empire, or if you were Hitler often saying England when you meant the whole lot of the UK + empire and dominions.

Saying England when you meant the UK was also commonplace at the time. There's even a dig at this in 'The Man Who Never Was' (1956), where an officer says how this will do great service for England, and the father of the dead man says that we're Scottish - but we're used to you saying that.

I don't really like to use the word pernicicious about any honest attempt to do history, but I'd argue there's at least as much bad faith in their arguments from the revisionist types as the original (perhaps more jingoisitic) ones who they're reacting against.

Britain had the Empire and Dominions (principally Oz, NZ, Canada and South Africa). This was clearly a massive part of the war effort. But they were a long way away. And of course, in the case of the Empire, they didn't get a choice about joining in the war. Though the Dominions' governments did.

In 1940 it was Britain that was under threat of invasion. And the bulk of the forces in play were British - both in terms of personnel, manufacture and funding.

After Dunkirk, when the bulk of the British army came back disorganised and with no heavy weapons I believe one Canadian division made it to the UK. Which was dead useful, seeing as Churchill sent most of the remaining organised troops (and the only armoured division) off to North Africa. Which is where the first available ANZAC and Indian troops were also sent.

For example, of the 3,000-odd pilots counted as having fought in the Battle of Britain a bit less than 600 were foreign. Although only one Canadian squadron fought as such. All the rest were integrated into the RAF - or had already been in it for years - given that "British" forces always had a number of recruits from around the empire.

I think to call it a pernicious myth is utterly ludicrous. Certainly context needs to be added, but it wasn't Canadian cities getting bombed, nor was Australia under immediate threat of invasion.

Obviously I've no right to take any kind of smug, self-satisified kudos from having fought the Nazis alone. I wasn't born yet. I suppose my Mum could - although as she was a child in the war Hening Wehn argues that all she was doing was using up resources vital to the war effort - so she was actually on Hitler's side...

I'd argue Hening Wehn is much better at puncturing that pomposity with humour - than any number of revisionist historians are with their own self-righteous twisting of the narrative.

Re: Book recommendation

In the end, it was a war of economics. And so the author has a point. It's easy to forget, because reading about battles is more interesting to most people. But reading about how Germany mismanaged its war economy, while the UK ran its far better - and the US economy boomed off into the stratosphere is vital to understanding the war.

However, the battles still matter. What if Germany had captured Moscow in 1941? That would have cut the Soviet rail network in half - severering almost the last North-South links. As well as doing immense damage to morale and Stalin's prestige. It would have done immense damage to the economy and made military operations so much harder - allowing the Germans the mobility to shift forces around and possibly outnumber different Russian fronts and defeat them in detail.

This post is giving me flashbacks. All those essays I was set at university, what is the effect of blah, blah blah on the thesis of Paul Kennedy's 'The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers'. Which basically takes 800 pages (and quite a lot of charts) to tell you that the alliance with the biggest economy tends to win the big wars. But at least I'm old enough to have avioded all the essays on Francis Fukuyama and his thesis about the end of history...

It is underestimated how much damage bombing did to the German ecoonomy. Not just bomb damage, but the vast resources put into trying to counter allied air attacks. And thus how little was left for equipment for the armies on the Russian front. The other thing is how crap Hitler was as a strategic commander. He had the attention span of a 4 year-old, when it came to someone wanting to waste vast resources on a shiny new project. So the mad thing is that German war production didn't peak until June/July 1944! And by then bombing had made a mess of Germany, and it was getting impossible to coordinate production properly.

Re: Good fiction reads

The film of the Cruel Sea is truly excellent, and doesn't shy away from some of the nastier bits of war. I was planning to recommend it, just because I watched it during lockdown, and there's a scene where one of the officers pops into Western Approaches to have a look at the operations map. One of my favourite scenes is the junior officer basically told that you're it, there's no doctor, here's a crew member with a broken arm and a book on advanced first aid. Get on with it. Which was pretty much how stuff went on the converted trawlers they were sending out as corvettes in 1940/41. It wasn't until they got the new flower class frigates in numbers, that things got a bit better.

Walker also talks a bit about it during the episode of 'The World at War' on the Battle of the Atlantic.

I guessed (and just checked) it was Audacity that was the escort carrier lost in the convoy where they gamed Walker's tactics. Audacity was Eric "Winkle" Brown's carrier (as often mentioned in this parish) - and he was on it when it got torpedoed. He talks about it in the BBC program where they interviewed him for his 90th birthday. Said that he survived because he had an RAF life jacket, which was much better than the Navy ones. He also talks about it in his book 'Wings on My Sleeve'.

And finally, while recommending books, 'Das Boot'. Lothar-Gunther Buchheim. Glad I looked up how to spell his name, as that's a fictionalised account of his two patrols as a photo-journalist on a U-Boat. Later he produced a trilogy of book-length photo essays on the war in the Atlantic - although they're probably going to be hard to get hold of.

But it's important to remember the Battle of the Atlantic. Not only was it vital to the war. But both sides suffered terribly. You were far safer in most army units than you were wandering round the Atlantic in 1941-43.

Re: Seems a security risk

Not just anyone could get cleared into the map room. So it's not like the cleaners could see it. But also the information was extremely time sensitive. Yes, an intel source would be very useful in learning Royal Navy patterns of operation. But the only way to get that kind of tactical information fast enough to be useful would be to tranmit it by radio - which was detectable at the time. Plus in order to inform their U-Boats, the Germans would also have to use radio - risking giving away their information source.

At various points in the war, Enigma was broken. I think it went dark in late 1941 and for most of 1942 - after the Kriegsmarine updated to Shark (the 4 rota Enigma). Once Bletchley cracked that, they realised that the Germans had broken the Navy's merchant shipping code - and had to change it. If there'd been a spy in the ops room, it would have been very hard to use the information without making it obvious.

Also German intelligence in the UK was rubbish. They couldn't even get ordinary spies in to wander round the countryside looking at stuff - let alone anyone at top levels.

Re: a quote from American journalist David Fairbanks White, …

It certainly is quite a claim, when compared to the much larger area east of Poland where the Wehrmacht met its match.

And why did the Wermacht meet its match? Because the Soviet Union had massive armed forces. And why was the Red Army so well equipped? Partly down to lend-lease.

As an example, the Allies provided the Russians with 400,000 trucks and jeeps. This meant that they were able to field whole motorised armies. The Germans could barely scrape together a handful of fully motorised corps. This made a massive difference. The Russians were continually able to surprise the Germans by building up forces behind the line, and then rapidly moving them in for quick attacks. The Germans, who lacked motor transport were tied to the railways for supply. They had a bit of air and road supply, but were basically reliant on trains and mules/horses. It's a myth that Germany didn't have winter clothing for its troops around Moscow in 1941. They had it, it was just in the depots in Germany. They couldn't get sufficient ammunition, fuel and food to the front - let alone clothing.

Also, even though three quarters of the German army were on the Russian front, only 25-30% of their war production was used to supply that. Most of it went on lost production to allied bombing, defence against that bombing or building U-Boats. Just think how many more tanks the Germans could have had on the Russian front, if they hadn't had to build 700 U-Boats?

Back-of-the-envelope calcs here. Germany built about 25,000 tanks during the whole war. Britain about half that, the US about twice and Russia about 4 times. If you can build 50 tanks with the steel and industrial resources it takes to build one U-Boat - then every 100 U-Boats less is 20% of Germany's entire tank production.

If Germany had been able to motorise its army, it may well have taken Moscow in 1941 or Stalingrad in 42. But most of the army walked - and their supplies came by horse, mule and train.

An interesting source here. Just from a quick Google, I had the 400k trucks number in my head from somewhere else - but I hadn't realised that the US supplied a third of the Soviet's entire supply of explosives during the war. Linky Linky

Re: Am I missing something...

A Coronavirus vaccine was in development after the original SARS outbreak of 2003. It was ready for human trials in 2016. Nobody was interested in funding it.

This is actually unfair. The human race did pretty well, what with a couple of separate Covid programs being parked and ready to go - when Covied decided it was ready to come for us.

The Oxford vaccine was originally designed for MERS - the Middle Eastern variant that liked to hide in camels before popping up to kill people. But there was limited transmission of that between people. Which is just as well - it killed half the people that got it. Because there was no outbreak ongoing, there was no way to test the vaccine. Or at least there was, but it was to vaccinate volunteers and then to deliberately infect them - which are called challenge trials. The ethics of deliberately infecting people with a virus that has a 50% death rate are unacceptable.

Re: At workers' expense

Such a nonsense. If workers don't produce value, then why are they there? So that the owners don't feel alone?

elsergiovolador,

Well that's sad. You start with a strawman argument. I didn't say workers don't produce value. I said they don't produce all of it. Different busineses will differ as to what's important.

I currently work for a company that's effectively a one-man band. It actually employs 6 people, but without the boss it wouldn't exist. The company is basically support for what they do. And that's all in knowledge and relationships and netwrorks built with the customers over 30 years. Now without that support it also couldn't work. So without workers, it wouldn't exist. But the point is that only one of the members of staff is irreplaceable. Everybody else could be replaced - some of us have more skills than others - and so it would be harder to do so.

Equally the most skilled machinist in the world, who can make amazing things to astonishing levels of accuracy - is totally unable to do any of that without expensive machines. Those machines in turn are made by many people's labour - using other expensive machines. So while their labour has value, and they're much harder to replace because they took so long to acquire their skills, if they take all the profit - then there will be no machines for them to use, because who would give them the money to buy them?

Unless you think that the idea the entrepreneur has is what produces value. In that case they don't have the right to value either as the value is its own entity.

There's a logical flaw in your argument here. The first statement does not logically lead to the second. My Aunt and Uncle are a physicists who programme. They started a company thirty years ago to design radio and radar antennae. That company almost purely exists inside their heads and in the software that they have generated. It's employed a few people as secretaries and admin - but all of those were totally replaceable as almost anyone could have done their job.

The reason that their knowledge and computer program had value, is because they put the work in to create it, test it and sell the use of it. And they could do that because other people needed to build mobile phone networks or put radars on their ships or aircraft. Their staff weren't entitled to an equal split of the value of the company because they weren't doing the important stuff, they weren't irreplaceable. Also they weren't taking the same risk, because they were getting paid a salary.

Or as another example of stuff just being in people's heads. I know a guy who's brought in to save failing pharmaceuticals companies. He has a background in medical research and has built up expertise in getting drugs approved, made and sold - while cutting costs or raising sufficient money to keep the company going. Other people could do his job, but not many. If it was easy, the companies wouldn't be in trouble in the first place. All he has is experience and a good contacts book. As a vote of confidence, when the UK government needed some vaccines really quickly, he was one of the people they called in to help.

Not every job is equal. Not every member of staff is equal. Salaries aren't even the largest cost of a lot of companies. Some jobs can't be done without expensive machines. In short, life is complicated.

Re: Commander Vimes style?

It's just after the King has been chosen, after "killing" the dragon. And Vimes is not happy. And in 'Guards! Guards!', as stated above.

Re: Hash Browns???

I particularly approve of the tea with brekkie, followed by coffee with toast and marmalade. Or often I reverse that.

This is because I'm normally the cook. And I won't face cooking a full fry up without at least having already had 2 fortifying cups of tea. So I tend to do coffee and orange juice with the breakfast, then back to tea for toast and marmalade.

I should add that champagne or cava is also an excellent accompaniment to a fried breakfast.

Re: Alternate method for the crap that supermarkets pass off as bacon...

Or just buy the more expensive dry cured supermarket best brand. Most of them have a range of bacon from shit to nice, depending on how much folding you're willing to give them. For good bacon, I consider it an investment.

werdsmith,

I think I disagree here. Some of the hardest meals to cook are actually dead simple. Like the fry-up, or the roast dinner. In each case all you're doing is buying nice ingredients and heating them. There's almost no poncing about with herbs or flavouring sauces. So in theory, it's dead easy.

But what you're actually doing is juggling, and judging timings to a nicety. This scares many cooks, and puts them off trying it. And so we need to help them by admitting that although it is difficult, it's achieveable - and there are techniques to help.

So with a roast, the absolute rule is that the roast tatties (and yorkshire puddings) must go straight from oven to plate. Everything else can be delayed to a certain extent.

With a fry-up, that's the eggs. In my opinion the bacon doesn't keep for more than a couple of minutes, and neither does the fried bread. But everything else is fine. So I aim to have everything done and then after turning over the bacon in the grill pan to have 4-6 pans going all at once with eggs and bread frying. The rest being kept warm in the oven or sitting in the pan it was cooked in on the side. Depending on numbers of people, some back-up fried bread and bacon may have to be in the oven - but for minimum possible time.

Re: Or.

A true English/British breakfast is art inna frying pan.

While I agree in principle, I feel that sadly we sometimes have to compromise with reality. One may, for example, only have access to 4 burners. Or not have 4 frying pans (the horror!).

I personally prefer my bacon grilled. Sausages are very slightly nicer fried, but are fine done in the oven or grill. So grill bacon, oven for sausages. Stovetop for everything else. Frying pans are great, if you've got a big griddle, you can knock out fry-ups so quickly and easily it's amazing. My Mum had this massive cast iron thing that replaced the metal gridwork above two of the gas rings, on her 6 burner hob. It was a thing of beauty - and I could do a fry-up for 6 in no time flat.

Fuck knows why you'd grill a mushroom. Fry them in butter man! Or miss them off entirely, I'm not really a fan.

Bread should be fried in half butter, half oil. But only one slice per person. In general I'd tend to actually do 2 slices per 3 people and put it on a plate in the middle of the table, with toast. Fried bread is one of the less popular options, like black pudding not eveyone likes it.

Mugs of tea. Fresh orange juice.

I'm off to see friends next week. Not seen them in nearly 2 years, what with one-thing-and-another. I'll be on fry-up duty on Sunday morning. 5 greedy people to feed. I'm already looking forward to it! Even though it means cooking in someone else's kitchen, that's not organised how it should be.

Re: "full English breakfast"

Also what is with this toast abomination? Fried bread please.

Toast is the strategic reserve. In case of insufficient fullness, then the second cup of tea is consumed with the emergency backup toast and marmalade second echelon.