* Posts by I ain't Spartacus

10123 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Jun 2009

Doom: The FPS that wowed players, gummed up servers, and enraged admins

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: Patience

I'd forgotten the friendly fire thing. You could sometimes run through a room full of those fireball chucking demons and then out the other side - and go off to kill some other stuff. Then most of them would have killed each other by the time you got back.

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: The Phone Rings

I didn't really like the chain gun. I preferred to pick enemies off with the shotgun and use the rocket launcher on big groups. With the odd bit of chainsaw action when you got to knife-figthing range.

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: Doom II

My brother had got 2.1 sound on his PC. Mine only had tinny speakers. Plus he had a 486DX with 4MB or RAM, the flash bastard! So on a visit to his place in London I got that lovely thrilling deep boom sound as you pumped the shotgun into the fire demon's faces. Lovely! But then there was also an alarming bass rumble to the door opening sound - so you're alone in a dark room - lights off and just reflected light from the monitor, and this being Doom there's not much of that. Then the sound coming from behind you of a doro opening, and the grunting sound of those pig demon things. Coming towards me! I physically turned my head to see what was coming to get me, and therefore was too slow to use the keys to turn my character and got my face eaten off.

Happy days! Games are much better now, but it's just sort of expected. My 3 gaming "realism" memories, are that early 90s Doom experience, playing TIE Fighter a few years later, and then being amazed by how good Half Life was on my new PC. The first time I got to drive the airboat I had this grin plastered on my face for several minutes...

NASA names the date for the first commercial crew demo flight

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
Happy

Re: Prediction

"We're going to have to blow the computer!"

[Big smile appears on face screen]

LG's beer-making bot singlehandedly sucks all fun, boffinry from home brewing

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: Why?

trollied,

Bread makers are an excellent invention. Even if you only use them for nice breads for parties.

My only problem with mine (and most of them I've seen) is that the loaf is a slightly odd shape. Which leaves you with slices that are too big for convenient sandwichery. But the bread's pretty good - and can be achieved with little more than 5 minutes of effort.

You get to have a bit more fun if you make bread by hand - as if you experiment too much with bread makers you risk the very precise balance/timing going wrong, as the machine is set for each recipe. However kneeding alone takes as much time as measuring the ingredients into the bread maker. Let alone all the faffing with proving, rising, knocking back etc.

Mine does a very nice wholemeal seeded, that's consistent, way tastier than even the posh supermarket loaves and lasts at least 4 days before it's only fit for toasting. Admittedly that does take 4 hours, but so long as you're there to take it out within ten minutes of the cooking finishing, that's no problem.

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: Does it despense vast amounts of bog rool??

Hence the famous quote, "If you drink too much real ale, the world will fall out of your bottom."

Ecuador says 'yes' to Assange 'freedom' deal, but Julian says 'nyet'

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: move on down the road a piece

No need. They can just ask him to leave. If he doesn't? I'm sure they can get a copper or two to pop over and help.

The only problem is the PR. Once you've granted him asylum and claimed you're his heroic defender against the evil capitalist running-dogs - then it's a tad embarrassing to climb down and kick him out anyway.

Dine crime: Chippy sells deep fried Xmas dinner

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

My friend* came over for a spot of dinner on Saturday. And brought a packet of Walkers sprout flavoured crisps. I actually like sprouts - but those things are the devil's work! They taste of over-cooked or off sprouts, not nice ones. Ugh!

*Friendship status now under urgent review.

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: battered?

Boiled for 9 minutes? You're not doing it right. My Nan used to put them on a low gas before she went to church on a Sunday morning, with the meat and tatties in the oven on a low-ish heat - so the family could come home to a dry piece of meat, soggy roast potatoes and weird green explodey things. When Nan served sprouts, you just touched them with your fork and they sort of slid/exploded apart into individual green slimey leafy things which used to float on top of the gravy.

Ah nostalgia, boiled ham, boiled tatties, gravy so thick you could plaster a wall with it and self-destructing sprouts. Then to add to the horror, tea involved crab paste sandwiches. Well it was the 1970s... And then there were Mr Kipling French Fancies, Cherry Bakewells and Jaffa cakes to follow. Vitamins? Missing in action.

Despite all that I actually now like a sprout or two. Steamed and not over-done. Even better with bacon and chestnuts.

Peak tech! Bacon vending machine signals apex of human invention

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
Happy

You mean a BACON lettuce and tomato sandwich then?

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: Learned Something New

John Savard,

We like bacon so much that apparently we've run out of room for pigs. So we've bought a lot of it from Denmark for years now.

Food markets are weird. For example the UK exports a lot of lamb to the rest of Europe and then imports loads from New Zealand to eat ourselves. Seems rather strange that we don't eat our own and let the Kiwi stuff go off to Europe - and save a bit of transport costs.

Amazon robot fingered for bear spray leak that hospitalised 24 staffers

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Did anyone watch the Tour de France this year?

There was a farmers protest, where they'd blocked the road with hay bails. Normal procedure used to be that the peleton would slow down for protests and everyone would get on with their day with the protestors having got their free media exposure. But I don't think there's that kind of cosy relationship anymore, not even in France.

So the police are clearing the road, just in time for the tour to be able to get through - but they're pushing the farmers back from the road who're stopping them getting rid of the last bails. And oops oh dear! On live TV as well. The gendarme on the left gets what looks like an industrial sized bottle of pepper spray out, and has a go at the protestors who're already 10 yards from the road. Don't know if they said something, he saw something, or just lost his temper.

But our poor lad is no sailor. And hasn't checked the wind. So first he goes down in a coughing spluttering heap, and then the cyclists come through his cloud of pepper spray at 30 kph - and then all stop and wipe their eyes and cough and pour their water bottles over their heads and still hurt so go to the medical car who's now swamped. Half an hour later, after mechanics have been called up to put eye drops in for the cyclists, and they've all wasted tonnes of bottles of water washing themselves clear - the race continues.

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
Happy

Re: Actual danger?

Hmmmm. KARDASHIAN. Lemme think...

Killer Autonomous Register Droid - Authoring Spying Hacking and Intercepting Amazon News

Sorry, long acronyms are harder.

Falcon 9 gets its feet wet as SpaceX notch up two more launch successes

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
Happy

Re: Gruesome Post-Mortem

A few squirts of WD-40, bit of T-Cut....soon be good as new.

You'll never make a rocket scientist! You forgot the gaffer tape!

Waymo's revolutionary driverless robo-taxi service launches in America... with drivers

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: Excessive Snark

I don't think this is excessive snark. It is very useful snark, carefully deployed to counteract some of the nauseating hype. And I love El Reg all the more for it.

I don't think this tech is ready for this level of incremental testing. Because I don't believe these driverless cars are safe enough to use on the roads unsupervised yet. To be fair to Google, they've set up their system rather better than Uber's slipshod effort. So they've not killed anyone. Uber's problem wasn't the technology failing - it was the fact that they had the "safety driver" filling in a fucking questionaire when she should have been looking out of the fucking window. Which is a horrific failure of both the staff involved for not spotting this incredibly obviously unsafe method of operation and the management who allowed it to happen. Or rather more likely given the awful quality of leadership at Uber - forced it to happen by deliberately cutting corners and generally not giving a shit.

Anyway Google presumably haven't had their drivers distracted by other work when they're supposed to be operating dangerous machinery. And worse dangerous machinery that works most of the time, but craps out occasionally - thus making for a much more dangerous operator boredom problem.

And now they're going to introduce paying passengers to that mix - risking the precarious concentration of their "safety drivers" in an already difficult situation where they're required to take over at a moment's notice.

I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

When they can reliably operate the cars for weeks on end without incident, then and only then should they be allowed to take paying passengers as an experiment. At the moment it's not proven that the cars are safe, but the taxi bit is an easy problem, that doesn't need to be solved until we're nearer the solution to the not killing everyone problem.

This is just a way of continuing the hype bandwagon, at a slightly increased risk to the public and employees of Google.

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

"Please fasten seatbelt. You have 20 seconds to comply."

Tumblr resorts to AI in attempt to scrub itself clean from filth

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
Happy

Re: Nipples ye say?

Ye spotted me laddie. Now, how would ye like a bright future in the Witchfinder Army? Pin and matches provided.

Of course with the introduction of the internet he'd be onto a good thing now. All those nipples to search for, without needing to leave the warm comfort of home. Broadband bills might be a bit high mind...

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
Flame

Nipples ye say?

Ah ye cannae be bannin' online photos of the female nipple. How else am I tae find them? Those jezebels, harlots and servants o' the evil one. Nae not for that laddie. Ye need to count them! And if they hae more than 2 nipples, then ye need to burn them!

Tumblr be full o' witches I tell thee!

Millennials 'horrify' their neighbours with knob-shaped lights display

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: Worthless without pictures

John Brown (no body),

Good Grief! Of course the internet isn't just for kitties.

The Internet Is For Porn - as this not all that safe for work video attests.

Waiter, what's this? SpaceX delivery delayed for a day by moldy food

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Did you miss something off that list of cargo?

What about the Christmas presents for the ISS occupants? After all, they've not got a chimney for Santa to come down - or much in the way of down...

Canuck couple returns home after night on tiles to gaggle of randomers hanging out in their flat

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
Devil

That's horrific!

What a waste of pizza...

Blockchain study finds 0.00% success rate and vendors don't call back when asked for evidence

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: Blockchains are a wonderful tool .....

My technology is a block on the end of some chain. It's amazing for separating people from their cash. I call myself a blockchain consultant.

After the block has hit you a few times, you soon let go of your wallet.

Support whizz 'fixes' screeching laptop with a single click... by closing 'malware-y' browser tab

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: For old times' sake

But in the manual it had the instructions to create a "Start of Day" disc, that had the OS and whatever software you wanted to use on it, so you could just chuck that in and work.

Although I never created on for Graham Gooch's Test Match Cricket, for some reason - and loaded CP/M first.

Simpler days... And better manuals.

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: I was that luser

I've had that happen on a friend's laptop before. WiFi isn't working, so they bring it to me. I can't get it to go through Windows - and there's no glowing red light to tell me it's switched off. There's no shortcut button on F8. Or obvious switch.

Then I put on my glasses and check the sides of the laptop, and lo! I find it. The 5mm long black slider, with no telltale LED and a tiny WiFi symbol etched in black on a black background.

Bastards! Have these fuckers never heard of UI design? The owner had never noticed the switch before, it wasn't in an obvious bit of the casing and they've got normal eyesight. The only reason I found it, is that I suspected it might be there.

I also hate those things because they seem to be switched off by default and only turn the WiFi on when the driver boots up in Windows. So when fixing another friend's laptop I couldn't get the Linux rescue CD to download up-to-date virus definitions - and had to do it manually.

UKFast mulls putting IPO on ice due to six little letters: BREXIT

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: forthcoming meetings in the next few weeks "will shed more light on the situation"

The ECJ could rule that we can just revoke Article 50. But I'm pretty sure they won't. The wording isn't clear, but A50 has a mechanism for delaying it that involves unanimity of the Council of Ministers and says that with or without a deal the deadline is 2 years otherwise. Surely the intent of that is quite obvious?

It would be perverse to allow 2 years of negotiations and then just go back to square one. Plus it would be an asymetric decision, which the UK could take with no choice for the other governments. Particularly as there's still a large number of voters in the UK who want to leave, so there's no guarantee that this won't happen again in a few years time.

Boeing 737 pilots battled confused safety system that plunged aircraft to their deaths – black box

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: Hey software, get the fuck out of the way!

As I understand it the two-inputs alarm did ring. But the pilots were too distracted by other alarms to notice. I think too many designers forget how much information the human can take in, and put too much on screens. It's still easier to read an analogue altitude dial quickly than a digital one - I think because the analogue one is effectively a picture - whereas you have to process the numbers and think about them with a digital one.

The same is true with the sidesticks. Why have a buzzer and a warning to tell you that someone else has hands one. It's fine in normal flight, but what if all brain cells are currently busy processing other warning data? At that point the physical action of having the stick pulling in another direction is telling you directly what's going on. Simplicity is best.

Remember that Quantas A380 that went all roller-coaster a few years ago, and kept going through multi-thousand foot dives and climbs? The crew had to put the plane into one of the more manual flight modes to correct it. I think the copilot had something like 1,000 warning messages in 5 minutes. No human can take in that data. He spent the first minute or two just scrolling through his screen acknowledging warning bells to shut them up and there was no way to work through that much info to come to any diagnosis of the problem.

You can train pilots in sims to take in more data, but I'm always struck by those Air Crash documentaries just how many alarms the pilots are subjected to. And they're distracting. Once confusion sets in I feel they actually make recovering from the confusion harder - even where there might actually be time.

Baroness Trumpington, former Bletchley Park clerk, dies aged 96

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
Happy

Doubt it. I don't think she did anything quietly...

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: Advocatus Diaboli

What she did for the Conservatives looks to be the usual mix of being a JP, local councillor and doing charity work. I admit here that I just popped into Wikipedia for a look - and it's not a well written article, but she didn't half get up to a lot. Assuing it's all true of course.

She seems to have done a bunch of Quango work, like being a member of the mental health tribunal (appointed by Labour in the 70s) - and as the piece says representing the country at the UN.

The peerage seems to have come during the time she was at the UN (1980), so I'd imagine it came because of that. But may also have been because Thatcher was planning to make her a minister later, when she came back? She also seems to have been involved in the diplomatic bits of Court - hence being made a Baroness and a privy councillor in 1980.

On Desert Island Discs she asked for the Crown Jewels as her luxury item. That way she'd have a better chance of getting rescued. Well played that woman!

I also approve of her having been a steward for Folkestone racecourse. So she clearly liked a drink, a smoke and a flutter.

NASA's Mars probe InSight really has Mars in sight: It beams back first pic after touchdown

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Why not 6 minutes of terror?

If you'd just sunk 10-15 years of your career into the design, funding and building of a space probe - and were unable to know or control the result of the most complicated and dangerous phase - wouldn't you be worried?

Even more importantly, if you've got budget for studying the results the thing produces for the next 2-5 years, and the thing crashes and burns you're out of a job.

Laptop search unravels scheme to fake death for insurance cash

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
Happy

Re: I thought Igor was just the lab assistant

You're going to dry your keyboard after typing that...

Black Friday? Yes, tech vendors might be feeling a bit glum looking at numbers for the UK

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: Relief

Charlie Clark,

Thanks. I'm out of date then.

I'm still hoping to get to a sofa / bed shop on a day when they're not having a sale of some kind. Then I'll know that I've either won at life, or the apocalypse is about to happen, so it doesn't matter.

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: Yet to be convinced black Friday makes sense...

Black Friday makes sense in the US. Because people have the day off. So it became a time that they did online Christmas shopping - after the Thanksgiving madness. And I think Cyber Monday was a thing for the people who'd browsed on that Friday and over the weekend to then do the buying on the office PC on Monday morning. Much better than working... The trick is putting in deals on the more expensive stuff that people might not otherwise buy, so you're upselling. Or in the case of Amazon - selling people Kindles and Echoes cheap, so you can lock them into your ecosystem.

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: Relief

I thought Germany had strict laws on sales - as to what prices you could charge and how often you could have them. Or does that only apply to actual shops? Or thinking about it, that knowledge is 20 years old - have they changed the rules?

Talk in Trump's tweets tells whether tale is true: Code can mostly spot Prez lies from wording

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: nothing truthful about them

I doubt Trump's intervention will have any effect on where Germany buys its gas from. The US have been bringing large amounts of LNG onstream, due to their rise in production from fracking, and so are looking to sell it into Europe. Only an idiot ignores a possible alternative supplier - even if only to make your main supplier cut their prices.

Gazprom are still building a massive second pipeline from Russia to Germany, in order to cut-out and fuck-over Germany's allies in Eastern Europe ease the logistics of their supplies to Germany. So Germany are still planning to use lots of Russian gas. They're just putting alternatives in place, now they're available.

In Space, Still: 20 years since Russia hurled first bit of floating astronaut hostel into orbit

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
Happy

If only we'd build Project Orion, we could get a decent space station into orbit in one piece.

I propose that we launch from Skegness. Nobody would miss it. Or Paris...

Big Falcon Namechange for Musk's rocket: BFR becomes Starship

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: Starship

Ah, superlatives in marketing... I saw a packet of dishwasher tablets recently. Finish Quantum Platinum Ultimate. And there was a yellow sign on the box saying new improved! How exactly does one improve on ultimate? Fuck knows what quantum has to do with anything - unless there's a cat trapped in the dishwasher...

Big data at sea: How the Royal Navy charts the world's oceans

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
Devil

Re: Not being a noisy neighbour

Perhaps the sonar has been programmed to shout "Oi! Clear off!" in dolphin, whalesong and orca.

Or perhaps they just harpoon all nearby whales and dolphins, stock up the freezer and then continue with ops as normal?

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
Happy

Semtex451,

I think it was the way you asked - because the question looked as much like a snarky comment as a question? And of course there is no nuance on the internet - somebody else is wrong and must be punished!

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

jmch,

I don't know actual details. And obviously the nuclear deterent is an extreme example of numbers of ships required to fulfill a role. But In the 30-40 year life of a boat it's going to have several year-long (or even multi-year) periods out of commission for major systems upgrades. They used to have to refuel the reactors, or just replace the whole damned thing, but I think Astute is supposed to have its entire lifetime's fuel aboard - so that's one less long refit.

You've also got shorter periods of maintenance, probably because they can run for so long without it. Systems will fail the longer your cruise is, due to constant use, and you can do some running-repairs or switch to back-ups. Plus there's probably all sorts of upgrades to onboard systems that are quick, but still require some time out of commission.

Then you've got to have training periods - and in the case of Trident they have to wander over to the US every so often for test-firings and to swap old missiles for new. We no longer do maintenance in Blighty, as we did with Polaris, because the missiles have a longer "shelf life" - so it was easier not to bother - minor maintenance can be done from within the sub.

So to have one boat permanently on patrol, you've probably got one in long-term maintenance of some sort or another, one working-up and training to take over and the last one recovering from its last trip.

That leaves some margin of error for accidents, such as a major breakdown or crashing into another sub - or the land. Where you'll have to sortie the boat on work-ups and then hurry the other one out of short-term maintenance - to make sure you're covered. Supposedly we've never not had a boat on patrol (like the MoD would tell us), but 4 gives a tight margin of error if two boats were to have unexpected maintenance issues simultaneously.

All this is brilliantly covered in Peter Hennessy's 'The Silent Deep' - which is about the RN's Cold War submarine program. He's a constitutional historian who got into the Cold War and nuclear policy via that route, and I'd also highly recommend his 'The Secret State' - about the early Cold War and British government reaction to it. His books are proper academic histories, so can get a bit heavy at times - especially when you get into chapters on nuclear policy debates, but he's a witty writer when he can be, and likes to get in a good story or two as well as the dry analysis of cabinet papers.

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

@ I ain't Spartacus

Very many thanks for fully and properly answering my innocent question.

No problem. I forgot to mention a couple of other things. One's been covered by someone else - if the submarine isn't near the surface it can't use GPS. If it is, then it has no advantage over a surface ship.

The other is that the ship can regularly drop probes to measure water conditions at various levels. As well as having that device to do it that can't be deployed in rough weather. And that info on temperature, salinity etc is vital to an accurate survey. Whereas a sub is only at one depth at any one time. Although obviously it can change that, but that would affect the survey data.

Finally there's more room on a survey ship. For general gear and comfort of the crew.

Having said that, as I understand it, at least one of our subs did participate in the search for MH370. But I don't know if that was helping with the survey work, or searching for the sonar pinging of the black boxes in the first few days. I suspect the latter, because it was in the early days. We also sent one of the survey ships for some of the search operation.

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
Coat

Re: Not being a noisy neighbour

I know you claimed you didn't see me, and made all that noise by accident. But we both know you did it on porpoise.

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Semtex451,

They ain't stealth tractors. The Astute class cost something like £2 billion each. If we'd not buggered about delaying the purchase and then thinking about changing the design, and so delaying them again, then the carriers wouldn't have cost all that much more than the Astutes. Despite being somewhat larger...

Nuclear submarines are horrifically complex, and have to be built to much higher tolerances, which also makes them much more expensive to maintain. They're also busy doing other things. Given the state of our relations with Russia I would be surprised if one of them isn't wandering round in places where it shouldn't be, poking it's nose where it's not wanted - as they did in the Cold War. And I think with subs you'd expect them to spend as much time under maintenance as they do at sea. Remember we have 4 Trident boats just to make it possible to keep one at sea at all times. According to the Navy's calculations an absolute guarantee of one nuclear sub permanently at sea requires 5 boats and with only 3 it's impossible.

Oh and also the stealt thing is really important. During the Cold War the RN put in massive effort to stop the Soviets from ever tracking a Trident boat. At least they said publicly they believed they'd managed it. That's because once you've tracked a boat you can record and build a profile of the noise it ouputs, which then means it's subsequently easier to track.

Technical foul: Amazon suffers data snafu days before Black Friday, emails world+dog

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
Happy

A synthesis of the two is needed perhaps?

He's making a list

He's checking it twice

He's gonna find out who's naughty or nice

Santa Claus is in contravention of article 4 of the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679

He has a legitimate interest if you're sleeping,

He knows if you're awake

He knows if you've been bad or good,

And his privacy policy determines the next action he'll take

...

So you'd better watch out.

You'd better not cry.

You cannot opt-out,

I'm telling you why.

Santa Claus has a legitimate interest in maintaining data on you and does not need to use the consent model of the GDPR.

[sorry about the scanning.]

Facebook's CEO on his latest almighty Zuck-up: OK, we did try to smear critics, but I was too out-of-the-loop to know

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: Starting to sound like a politician.

There's little evidence that Zuckerberg has ever worried about the truth. The stories from the founding of Facebook in his college days all suggest the opposite.

And as the saying goes, the fish rots from the head downwards.

Hence if he's a loathsome greedy scumbag, then that's the kind of company he'll found and continue to run.

However bad you may think Google are, I'd say sometimes very bad, they can be grateful for the existence of Facebook. It makes them look pretty good in comparison.

Oz lad 'fell in love with' baby meerkat, nicked it from zoo, took it out for a romantic Big Mac

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
Happy

Re: The real question

jake,

Well played sir! Not only did I laugh out loud, but in my efforts not to disturb the office, it came out like Muttley sniggering - which made me laugh even more.

Saggerfrassin'-rassin'-Dick Dastardly!

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

The real question

Did he take it to McDonalds because that was where he was going for a snack on the way home? Or did he sit it at the chair opposite and buy it a burger?

After all, I've seen them eating at restaurants in those bitesize documentaries between the programs. As well as wearing smoking jackets and eating popcorn at the cinema.

Also according to said documentaries if you spray yourself with Lynx - women will want to be near you, rather than recoil in horror. And Ferrero Rocher are apparently nice...

Although on that last one, they are in fact offered at the Ambassador's Reception. The Times did an interview with the Russian ambassador in London, and he had a tray of the vile things in his waiting room.

Russia: We did not hack the US Democrats. But if we did, we're immune from prosecution... lmao

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: They are Russian

Fantasy. The Polish army in 1939 was only 200,000 strong. I'm sure they had reserves, but I'm not sure how well-trained they were. The German Versailles army was only 100,000 strong - but this was always designed as a core that could be rapidly expanded. They'd kept a whole bunch of NCOs, so that they could just add recruits and expand. And they'd never abandoned the General Staff - even though that was also banned under Versailles. The Germans had a tank school and plane testing going on in Russia during the late 20s - and actually had an embryonic tank formation by this point - just without tanks. I think it was called the Motor Transport School. They had prototype tanks as well, so I'm sure could have had a working tank unit or two within a month or two.

Germany had modern industry and probably 5 million people who'd served in WWI and were still in their 30s or early 40s. A Polish invasion of Germany in 1934 would have been a disaster. Unless they could induce France to invade with them of course.

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: They are Russian

Voland's right hand,

The difference is that the German-Soviet non-aggression pact was a lie from it's very name. It was actaully a military alliance. There's no comparison with a much weaker power like Poland signing a non-aggression treaty with the great power next door - one that also supposedly settled their many border disputes.

The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact had a secret section that agreed on a future joint invasion of Poland - as well as agreeing the bits of its neighbouring countries that the Soviet Union were planning to invade - like the Baltic States, Finland and Romania.

There were also other trade agreements put in place at the same time and after it. So the Soviets provided the Germans before and during WWII with food, oil, strategic matierals for weapons manufacture and even a submarine base in the arctic, plus passage for a commerce raider into the Pacific.

It's one thing to argue that the Western Allies diplomatic failure in Eastern Europe forced the Soviets to make their own arrangements with Germany. It's another to justify helping to arm the German war machine, while they were fighting Britain and France - particularly stupid given that it was likely to be turned on them next.

YouTube supremo says vid-streaming-slash-piracy giant can't afford EU's copyright overhaul

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge
Devil

Re: Time for change

What about products that genuinely do make you more attractive to the opposite sex?

Yikes. UK military looking into building 'fully autonomous' killer drone tech – report

I ain't Spartacus Gold badge

Re: Missiles, Torpedoes, Mines etc.

Khaptain,

Anti-ship missiles have been able to pick their targets for years. Wasn't the Atlantic Conveyor hit by an Excocet that was decoyed by a warship's chaff and then picked a new target once it was through the chaff cloud?

Obviously in an ideal world, you'd pick specific targets - but it's bloody dangerous getting close to a carrier group, so sending swarms of missiles from long distances programmed to target the biggest radar return they could see was one method.

Similarly it used to be doctrine for subs (bet it still is) to fire a torpedo down the track of any incoming torpedo, to keep the firing submarine busy while you're trying to avoid the fish they lobbed at you.

There are fewer targets at sea in wartime, and of course this stuff was designed for WWIII. There's been a minimum of naval warfare since WWII - and it's easier to distinguish ships in the wide empty ocean from other things. Much harder when dealing with dug-in troops in counter-insurgency - where there's loads of civilians running around.