* Posts by Lars

4256 publicly visible posts • joined 21 May 2007

Big Tech on the hook for billions in back taxes after US Supreme Court rejects Altera stock options case hearing

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The Age of Reason

The Age of Reason started in Europe after all.

Only true boffins will be able to grasp Blighty's new legal definitions of the humble metre and kilogram

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Re: Only true boffins...

The European Parliament.........

That is a lot of rubbish, the MEPs are elected in their own countries, the group they decide to join in the EP has has no real power over a MEP except that there is power in teamwork. MEPs tend to have their own field of greater interest and the rest they expect their team to master. The voting system is modern and rapid, a few minutes per voting and nothing like the medieval system with people wandering around like in a circus like in the British Parliament.

The EP is not a two party system with one party ruling the roost.

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The US Army adopted the metric system years ago.

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Re: Why a kilogram?

On 20 May 1875 an international treaty known as the Convention du Mètre (Metre Convention) was signed by 17 states.

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Re: Spelling

@Nick Ryan

If you add that English is a Germanic language it all gets so much easier to understand.

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Boffin

YouTube to help you all.

The metre

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

And the second,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ml8mXtDbwqs

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Re: Spelling

"The question is why are you so keen to re-subjugate us to the French".

I prefer kilo to kilogram or kilogramme but regarding being worried about French I believe it's a bit late as there are some ten thousand words from French in the English language. Britain was ruled in French (and Danish) for quite some time after all.

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Re: Spelling

"The kilogram (also kilogramme) is the base unit of mass in the metric system, formally the International System of Units (SI), having the unit symbol kg. It is a widely used measure in science, engineering, and commerce worldwide, and is often simply called a kilo in everyday speech."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kilogram

"The metre (Commonwealth spelling) or meter (American spelling) (from the French unit mètre, from the Greek noun μέτρον, "measure") is the base unit of length in the International System of Units (SI).".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metre

City of London Corporation explores options to escape Oracle's clutches

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Re: Good Luck

"- It will cost at least three times the initial budget".

And the sun will rise in the east, and the budget was too optimistic, and every time the fault will be somebody else's fault but those who decided about time and budget.

This with 35 years of experience delivering the software and I am hardly alone with this experience.

It's fairly simple really, there is always two good buddies, the customer who want it quick and cheap and the salesman who also would like that to happen in order to get the order.

Russia drags NASA: Enjoy your expensive SpaceX capsule, our Soyuz is the cheap Kalashnikov of rockets

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Re: Kalashnikov = 'Cheap'?

The AK was/is made in many countries. This video about one of the better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ohnvp16-ab0

Valmet M62/S: The AK in Finland

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Re: Kalashnikov = 'Cheap'?

"Money that didn't go to hospitals and schools went to producing armaments.".

Many nations have lots in common.

As UK Parliament heads back to in-person voting, select committees are told they can continue working via Zoom

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Or Sweden ???

Death rate per 100K

Sweden 46.3

New Zealand 0.5

Norway 4.5

Finland 5.0

Germany 10.5

Britain 61.6

Italy 56.3

Spain 58.1

USA 33.7

The Swedish Death rate corresponds to 152.000 deaths in the USA.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/mapping-spread-new-coronavirus/?itid=hp_hp-banner-low_web-gfx-death-tracker%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans

And for those interested in history.

1918 Spanish Flu historical documentary

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDY5COg2P2c

Franco-German cloud framework floated to protect European's data from foreign tech firms slurpage

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Re: Free Trade

"I can't see Poland being given a look-in".

Why would anybody been given a look-in. Either you take part or you don't, there are lots of projects within the EU where some countries take part and others don't.

But allow me to smile at the "pay" in relation to Poland.

Poland is like Britain when Britain joined the EU, the economy was then below that of Italy and Britain received help from countries like France, Germany and Italy in the hope the country would rise and become a new net contributor, which also happened and there is that same hope regarding Poland too today.

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Re: How will they build it?

" how are they going to build it without hardware from non-EU countries.".

Silly boy, why would they do that.

We're number... six. Analysis puts UK behind Switzerland and Kuwait in 5G adoption

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Nokia sold it's cell phone department but kept the networking part,the older part, and Nokia got the money for selling to MS.

Ericsson did the same but a lot earlier.

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Re: Willy waving

"Sweden, home of Ericsson, doesn't even feature in the analyst's list ".

Personally I don't miss 5G and I don't think I will spend any money on it in years if it's up to me.

One possibility here is, of course, that Sweden was not in that analysis at all, what ever, but Finland is even less densely populated than Sweden so there must be a better reason than that.

SpaceX Crew Dragon docks at International Space Station

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Re: this is only half the trip

"Landing is MUCH easier".

Perhaps but more crew has died in the process of landing than going up, and if you hit the atmosphere at the wrong angle you might never land.

Made-up murder claims, threats to kill Twitter, rants about NSA spying – anything but mention 100,000 US virus deaths, right, Mr President?

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Re: Comparing the death rates

He was late and inefficient, remember, it was only one Chinese and the hoax flue would soon go away.

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Re: You supported a system...

All the same, having an ignoramus and idiot as a president is not a good solution to any problems.

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Calm down

The orange clown will soon be gone, and he is now in panic mode because he has suddenly understood that he is about not to get a second term.

Still I hope at least the US Army keeps a tight look at him as this guy has absolutely no shame at all.

There are clips from him back in time, on YouTube, where he is able to form complete sentences and has not painted his face orange, but have you ever seen him good heartedly laughing at himself or anything like a sound normal person.

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Re: But no one cares what Trump has to say

It's not indeed a competition in deaths, but it should not become a competition in excuses either, the British now in the lead in that respect in Europe, for some reason. Right now there is a clear correlation between deaths and the way countries reacted, those with a slow and confused start leading, like the USA, Britain and Sweden.

There is also the "excess mortality", data that compares what is going on now in different countries compared to previous years without the virus.

It's quite revealing and you find it here:

https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps

This is not over yet and it's no time to boast about anything for anybody or to come up with any silly explanations.

A world wide stat you find also here:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/mapping-spread-new-coronavirus/?itid=hp_hp-banner-low_web-gfx-death-tracker%3Ahomepage%2Fstory-ans

Not going Huawei just yet: UK ministers reportedly rethinking pledge to kick Chinese firm out of telco networks by 2023

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Re: shambles.gov.uk/2020-05-27#huawei

First you write "RIP Marconi, we hardly knew ye", and then you tell us you worked for them for 30 years.

So with your "inside" information what happened. Was it the Government, the Tory or Labour, foreigners like the Americans or the French, the Welsh ..

You use the word attitude, what if the attitude of believing one to be the best in the world, and falling a sleep like after a good (insert word of your choice here) is the real reason to the more or less RIP Marconi in the UK.

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Re: shambles.gov.uk/2020-05-27#huawei

"Remember Marconi?"

What Ericsson didn't want of Marconi is Telent today, what was it that Marconi had that BT did not want to have and when was that?.

As you are apparently interested in industrial history, Marconi founded in 1897, when had "we" the best comms tech in the world.

PS. I am sure Ericsson is hoping that what they bought doesn't go all RIP just yet.

The Last J-Freighter: HTV-9 arrives at the ISS as ESA inks a deal for a third Moon-bound service module

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£1m, what a bold move.

Brit competition regulator will soon be able to seize rogue traders' domains – and even Amazon accounts

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Re: Because the US is well known for respecting other countries' courts

.com is not US only, so we do not all know.

ALGOL 60 at 60: The greatest computer language you've never used and grandaddy of the programming family tree

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Re: It started my career move...

Hello steamnut,

So did I in 1968, what about you. I still have my diploma, happy days indeed.

And the girl, the one with the gorgeous legs I presume.

The end really is nigh – for 32-bit Windows 10 on new PCs

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Linux

Re: When will it be the year

"The year when m$ make a version of Office for linux".

Or when MS adopts linux for the kernel on Windows, as they could, rewriting Windows.

It's rather complicated, companies especially those with a modest IT department want a company to rely on.

With linux, who would that company be, IBM or Google or Ubuntu or who, and where is the money, and would companies pay for linux like they pay for Windows today.

Linux is so dominant today that indeed the desktop is the last wall standing, and so what.

Organisations, companies and individuals will have to take their own decisions, there is no big guy cashing in on linux on the desktop, and perhaps it's as good.

The linux on the desktop was after all something invented by some reporter a long time ago.

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Re: Linux

The year of Linux on the desktop is the year you put it on your desktop. For me that year was 1998, in short, every year is the year of Linux on the desktop.

Now there's nothing stopping the PATRIOT Act allowing the FBI to slurp web-browsing histories without a warrant

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Re: Land of the free

Everything will depend on the vaccine(s), on when and how effective it is or they are.

If you're going to spend $3tn, what's another billion? Congress urged to inject taxpayer dollars into open anti-Huawei 5G radio tech

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From buying Nokia and/or Ericsson to Open RAN, are we consumers really in such a hurry for 5G, we will after all pay for all of it.

C'Mon Nokia and Ericsson if you cannot be as cheap you have to be better.

Total Eclipse to depart: Open-source software foundation is hopping the pond to Europe

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Re: Bye bye

Yes indeed.

"advocating economic and social interventions to promote social justice within the framework of a liberal democratic polity and a capitalist-oriented mixed economy"

Some Americans have been fooled to believe the capitalism is missing. This is partly due to the two party system where everything is either or, if capitalism is part of the right then it must be absent in the left.

The English aren't much better babbling about Venezuela during each election like the pink twat in the WH.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ftpc4fwcDfk

Trump’s Best Words

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Re: Bye bye

Luckily more and more Americans have started to understand the difference between social security and socialist security, between a social person and a socialist person and between social behaviour and socialist behaviour.

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Re: A long time coming

All of Europe uses the decimal comma, and lots of other countries too, it's only the British who are the odd exception and the poor Americans who came to adopt it too. It's very much like with the metric system.

English-speaking countries took the comma to separate sequences of three digits.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_separator

PS. was that really that difficult to grasp.

Virgin Galactic takes another step towards blasting Richard Branson into space

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Re: Priorities?

I might agree with "no State aid for Virgin Atlantic" but travelling across the Atlantic did not end with the Titanic.

It has been 20 years since cybercrims woke up to social engineering with an intriguing little email titled 'ILOVEYOU'

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Or perhaps "The word fake news shows that far too many are still gullible.".

Latvian drone wrests control from human overlords and shuts down entire nation's skies

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Joke

A very light aircraft indeed of 26kg in aviation-standard units or not.

The ultimate 4-wheel-drive: How ESA's keeping XMM-Newton alive after 20 years and beyond

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Re: Collaboration is the word

"Italy gets most of the research contracts for the simple reason that they put in most of the money.".

It's not that simple.

If we talk about ESA the main contributors are the EU, France and Germany also you don't get any contracts if you have nothing to deliver. On the whole I think there is a tendency to underestimate the quality of Italy and its industry.

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Collaboration is the word

With some surfing we find.

"Industrial involvement: The prime contractor was Dornier Satellitensysteme, part of Daimler Chrysler Aerospace (Friedrichshafen, Germany). They led an industrial consortium involving 46 companies from 14 European countries and one in the United States. Media Lario, Como, Italy, developed the X-ray Mirror Modules. About 1000 engineers and 150 scientists were involved in the creation of XMM-Newton.".

But also.

"Prior to June 2013, the SSC was operated by the University of Leicester, but operations were transferred due to a withdrawal of funding by the United Kingdom.".

"the XMM-Newton Survey Science Centre (SSC)"

We're in a timeline where Dettol maker has to beg folks not to inject cleaning fluid into their veins. Thanks, Trump

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Sad

That is, it's not sad that there is a limit to how long you can hide stupidity, and the more the chosen pink stable genius speaks the more difficult it has become for him to hide his stupidity.

The sad thing is that in a two party system it's so hard to vote for the assumed enemy party and against the idiot and many choose the party and the idiot instead.

To be honest, there is indeed a large third party too, the party of those who do not vote at all, a very good choice for those who do not want to vote nor for the idiot or the enemy party.

Are U sure it's all going a bit V-shaped, SAP? ERP giant goes own way, seems optimistic about third quarter bounce

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"What customers need is a steady course and a leadership team that announces things and then delivers them rather than having their internal discussions and tensions that ultimately culminate in certain departures like this,"

I agree, it's true in politics too but less common.

I am convinced SAP was hoping this dual system would produce from 1+1 more than 2, bur apparently it did not.

I am not actually that surprised it did not work, and while I am sure it's possible to find such a team I have never worked in such a company. (not that it proves anything) And when it doesn't work you skip it.

As for the "word", please stop this agony, and reveal it soon. Is it optimism, sells speak or is it all doom and doom, or mere fantasy.

SAP decides one head is better than two in a crisis, parts ways with co-CEO Jennifer Morgan

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Re: Does this tell something about SAP cloud?

There is also a slight possibility that two persons held strongly conflicting opinions and one had to go.

Hana-hana-hana: No it's not your dad trying to start a motorboat... It's Northern Gas, renewing its SAP software

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Re: Slightly silly

Or perhaps there is a slight possibility that it's about SAP being a European German company and the world's third largest software and programming company, and not sold to India, China or the USA.

SAP was formed by five former engineers from IBM in 1972. SAP employs more than 100.000 people and has over 425,000 customers in over 180 countries.

And as a programmer I would claim the six hours to five min is not about the five min but about why it took six hours. It was most likely a batch program then, while now it is about a ongoing process between the wage periods and now they will be able to send the data to banks and employees in that 5 minutes and just on time. Nothing fishy here.

I wish SAP and customers all the best, why would I not.

As for Sod's Law why babbling about it, we all know that at times things go wrong and that will always be the case regardless of company, at least I know it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SAP_SE

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Slightly silly

I find this article slightly silly. There is always a lock-in, had they gone with say Oracle it would be the same. Apparently there is a lock-in with Office too.

They make the best possible choice so why hope it will fail even if it is a British company.

RHEL pusher Paul Cormier appointed CEO to lead Red Hat into the IBM era

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I read this as good news for both red and blue.

Watch: Rare Second World War footage of Bletchley Park-linked MI6 intelligence heroes emerges, shared online

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Re: Soviet Army in Manchuria

I think Perer Kuznick and Oliver Stone get the logic behind the bombs right here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBDG2NeiZ6c

Microsoft's Bill Gates defrag is finally virtually complete: Billionaire quits board to double down on philanthropy

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A few kind words about Windows

There is no way to deny that Gates wasn't extremely efficient in building his relationship with OMS and Intel, but not a visionaire in anything IT related.

And when we look at the world today Windows is still mainly on the desktop while the rest of the world runs an a *nix* type of OS from embedded to supercomputers. And the reason to this is that Unix was hugely more sound from the very beginning.

In Finnish there is a "beautifully" visual way of explaining why and how something failed,

"kuin juosten kustu", and as Google translate won't help you much, kuin is as or like, juosten is running and kustu is pissing. A very visual kind explanation of Windows programming.

Sadly Gates did not go for Xenix although he was thinking about it.

Jobs on the other hand understood to go for BSD a *nix* based OS.

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"Like many robber barons of the past, Gates has devoted at least some of his mind-boggling wealth to philanthropy."

True but I would recommend Anand Giridharadas: "Winners Take All", for additional thoughtful views on that topic.

Like here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FauQpni67go

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_zt3kGW1NM

Also the book "Inside Intel" is interesting regarding both Gates, Windows and Intel.

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Re: 1-2-3

Points for remembering Visicalc, came on Apple II first and I was impressed indeed.

UK Defence Committee probe into national security threat of Huawei sure to uncover lots of new and original insights

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(Alcatel/Ericsson/Nokia/Siemens).

No Alcatel-Lucent is Nokia like that part of Siemens:

"On 3 November 2016, Nokia completed the acquisition of the company and it was merged into their Nokia Networks division. Bell Labs was still maintained as an independent subsidiary of Nokia.".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcatel-Lucent

It is 50 years since Blighty began a homegrown and all-too-brief foray into space

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Re: Ariane

"ESA is an intra-governmental organisation that is entirely separate from the EU."

I find that a bit silly to claim given the facts.

So lets look at the strength of the "voice" in ESA.

The main contributor is the EU from its budget and them we have members contributing.

France 26.9%

Germany 20.1%

Italy 13.7%

Spain 5.1%

Other EU states

together 13.3%

Non EU states

UK 9.5%

Switzerland 3.4%

Norway 1.8

Canada 0.6

Slovenia 0.1

Considering the size of the country the British contribution is not that stellar.

Apart from that ESA has its headquarters in Paris and the primary spaceport in Guiana.

And I am not all that convinced that your claim - "ESA management probably hopes that their non-EU members (like Britain) might save them from this fate" is shared by all that many.

Perhaps you should listen to Fintan O'Toole, "The Politics of Pain" to understand that some people find it quite plausible to cooperate and share resources, while some, perhaps due to historic nostalgia, find it harder.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hA08SXJ8mAY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JvDAW5SjdaE