Posts by Lars

Re: Someone get Assange a cookie

I would have given you an up vote if you had written "Cause he's doing God's work in showing what a bunch of corrupted criminals most of the Republicans and Democrats are!. Just get rid of the Citizens United.".

Re: Giant Airships!

Well perhaps, but then again the last and first giant British airship crashed on its maiden flight.

Re: Why wasn't he paying attention?

@ Sorry that handle is already taken.

My point too but the "swerving" is interesting. Breaking in a panic is very normal and sometimes it happens to be the right thing to do and sometimes not. The problem with breaking is that you lose your ability to affect your direction. The car will take the direction of the tangent. People who drive during the winter tend to know it well. So apart from swerving or breaking there is the possibility that adding some speed or a combination is the right thing to do. As we all know we are all a lot better as drivers as the average while on the other hand we make silly mistakes (if we are honest about it).

Somebody mentioned "in a heart beat", which is a second for me and a computer can do a lot in that time.

There is a very interesting case for breaking or swerving, the Titanic. As we know they did both. It's claimed that had they taken the iceberg head on they would have destroyed two perhaps three water tight compartments in the front and they would have survived. But such a decision on the bridge would have been "unhuman" and the poor captain would have been ridiculed and accused of wreaking the ship out of stupidity. And assuming they turned port and that the propeller turned clock wise on forward then reverse would have prevented to some degree the ship from turning port. Perhaps adding some speed could have helped instead. All more than a human can deal with in a heart beat.

Re: It's an old story

"Don't you mean his "hookers 'n' blow" budget?". That reminds me of a guy who spent some time in Germany and then tried to enter a bill from "Escort Service" into his travelling expenses claiming he had to service his Ford Escort. Nice try.

Re: I've said it before

"The problems are only with packages I have downloaded and installed, you know, things like Steam among others.".

Those packages are then apparently not suitable for your distro. Use the repositories for your distro and of course RTFM, says somebody who will mostly do everything else first.

And then you also have to just understand that as soon as there is a MS-Linux comparison some trolling tend to happen too.

Don't take that personally and feel offended.

I am an old Linux user since 98 and these modern distros are indeed very usable out of the net or the box.

Re: SCO is *not* dead...

Hello 404, I was writing about SCO Unix not the Linux version, and I have no idea of what is going on now but I remember they had some big customers like McDonald's. The SCO customers we had, around twenty, all converted to the NT during those years when Microsoft was smiling. Wasn't that difficult as we used PROGRESS for our systems. But it wasn't easy for the customers. I think all of them had to upgrade their new hardware soon because the damned thing got slower. Some customers suddenly found unwanted people messing around in their systems and worst of all they still needed help, something they did not expect because it was Windows.

@YARR

"Russia and India have space programmes, look at the size of their economies compared to the UK. How do they afford it?".

Perhaps you are not quite up to date with the size of economies.

COUNTRY COMPARISON :: GDP (PURCHASING POWER PARITY)

Rank Country GDP (PURCHASING POWER PARITY) Date of Information

1 China $19,390,000,000,000 2015 est.

2 European Union $19,180,000,000,000 2015 est.

3 United States $17,950,000,000,000 2015 est.

4 India $7,965,000,000,000 2015 est.

5 Japan $4,830,000,000,000 2015 est.

6 Germany $3,841,000,000,000 2015 est.

7 Russia $3,718,000,000,000 2015 est.

8 Brazil $3,192,000,000,000 2015 est.

9 Indonesia $2,842,000,000,000 2015 est.

10 United Kingdom $2,679,000,000,000 2015 est.

11 France $2,647,000,000,000 2015 est.

12 Mexico $2,227,000,000,000 2015 est.

13 Italy $2,171,000,000,000 2015 est.

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2001rank.html

And apparently the Brexit has already caused this text too:

"The UK, a leading trading power and financial center, is the third largest economy in Europe after Germany and France".

Re: 2020?

"Sad difference between public and private projects.". Just not that simple.

Re: No Problem...

While I will install Linux anyway I am not sure they will remove the cost of pre-installed Windows 10, or?.

Could it be that some Brexiters are upset bye the fact that the world is not only crying but laughing too.

Re: Avast there!

@ Voland's right hand

"Frankly, it does not matter". I would frankly claim it does. For a slightly blunt and short comparison.

In most European countries adult people pay their taxes so that their kids can afford their education no matter what happens to their parents. Paying in advance, an insurance if you like. And of course there are kids who's parents paid hardly nothing, but I am OK with that too.

A slightly rude (but only slightly) explanation of the US model is when you kick (if you can) your kids out the door telling them to get some fucking loan and some education, you pay later. And so they go and so will their kids too.

Don't understand me wrong, we are children of our societies and our opinions and thinking relate to that.

Incidentally I have heard of Americans who seem to think there are no private schools or hospitals in these odd European, on the brink of communism, countries. Not so, but a Trump University we are not allowed to cherish.

To Amstrad, Bull, Nixdorf, Siemens, ICL, and Olivetti I would add Philips, Nokia, Norsk Data and why not Elliot too.

To the American brands, Wang, Control Data, Next, Fortune Computer, Basic 4, Motorola, Orange Computer? and many more I just cannot remember right now.

Brands because they tend to disappear with mergers too.

Some I have programmed but there was friends and all those selsmen too.

Nixdorf Computer “died” with Heinz Nixdorf as his kids decided to sell. But parts of it remain as Wincor Nixdorf. Customers to Lidl might have noticed them.

Nixdorf, Philips and probably Olivetti moved, or tried to move, to Unix, but much too late.

I do agree with “Silicon Valley’s pre-eminence in venture capital” and would add “crowd sourcing” too, risk capital in short.

It's not that we don't have any startups but they tend to be bought when ripe and end up elsewhere, like in the USA, China and India.

When comparing wages, the cost of living and why not the cost of educating kids, should be taken into account too, if an employee of course.

For those business gurus who always claim the problem is, employment laws, regulations, trade unions, burdensome close-downs and what not, perhaps they have become to greedy, too rich to care a thing about any country, any society.

I am not prepared to tear down my society just to please them, and end up in a “third world wild west”.

Re: So any company that trades with an EU country has to open their borders to EU inhabitants?

@sabroni

"If they desperately want to trade with us they'll come to a deal, if they think they can get the trade they need and charge us a bit of tax on the way, they'll do that".

Please sabroni, while I know the world is complicated, it's not the exporting country that puts "a bit of tax on the way". And as for "desperation" is it not rather the UK that is out desperately begging for additional advantages.

And Dear Sabroni, Britain will import what it needs as before, and I would advice you to try to understand why "London" voted remain. This whole Brexit farce had hardly nothing to do with trade but the result will affect it. Well, you will by what you need, and so will I.

Hello, Pompous Git

That's not that hard to work out, and not that a revolutionary measure of rotational speed.

Our galaxy does things like this:

Our solar system orbits the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Our sun and solar system move at about 800 thousand kilometers an hour – that’s about 500 thousand miles an hour – in this huge orbit. So in 90 seconds, for example, we all move some 20,000 kilometers – or 12,500 miles – in orbit around the galaxy’s center.

It takes the sun approximately 225-250 million years to complete one journey around the galaxy’s center

And as far as I remember our galaxy moves at 2 million km/h (somewhere).

.

Re: Passport, driving licence validity

@ PatientOne

While I agree very much that history is interesting it still gets a bit silly if we try to build our ego on the past.

England wouldn't be England without the Normans and English wouldn't be English either, without the 10.000 words they brought with them (it wasn't all Danish). And what England had in France was all lost to (insert word of your choice here).

There are standards and regulations and agreements and whats not. And I must admit I was a bit taken by one of those UKIP twats who so happily declared that now Britain well be able to get rid of regulations and create their own. But there is a problem. Britain will have to produce according to EU regulations when selling to the EU and whatever, as before, in the rest of the world.

So Brits be aware, if regulations, on say food, are watered down in Britain then you might end up eating something the British industry will happily and more "economically produce only for you. Eventually it will also interest manufacturers elsewhere too, who will feel happy to make some extra profit when exporting to the UK.

And now for the next tragicomical event, the presidential election. Could they be as enthusiastic, time will tell.

Re: Wow.

"I'm guessing the pilots dumped most of the fuel before landing again".

Not sure if the 777 has a fuel dumping system and too lazy to find out, also it could be optional.

Quoting the Wiki:

"Many movies and TV news stories mistakenly assume that all aircraft can dump fuel, when in fact most cannot.".

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

But I would suppose something more might have gone wrong as it should be possible to put out an engine fire.

And please Brits and Americans, grow up. Both RR and PW produce fine engines, and both fail, now and then.

Re: Sorting out a new PM is going to be amusing.

"His dog saw a stick of dynamite fly into the river and retrieved it". That joke was probably invented during Nobel's lifetime and has then travelled the world like jokes do. I am fairly sure I have seen it in some cartoon too, Walt Disney perhaps.

But in this Brexit time it brings to my mind the "fear mongering" word. What an adult word it is. Adult because I cannot remember my kids ever using it when I "warned" about not looking out for cars or walking out in the cold naked, and all such things, A rather silly word really, whenever you express anything that sounds like a warning it can be used.

In need of something to look forward to I have been thinking of a situation where I stand by some frozen lake or river and some guy wants to walk across, and I know the ice is much too thin. I would, I think, warn him. But suppose he then started to shout - "bloody fear mongering". Would I then push him out on the ice with a grin, grabbing my phone to make a video to show what a brave father he was, to his kids, after the funeral. I really don't know, but I am fairly convinced I would not run ahead to prove my point.

So many questions.

Of course there is also this rather interesting use of the word fear mongering - scare tactics, as the last resort.

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

As for this article, a wast of ink.

And for Brexit I will introduce this short oppinion.

A flip of the tongue.

(by a PM)

Re: Really?

"Cameron - a better deal when negotiating." Why would the EU give the UK a better deal than for other EU countries. Imagine they gave France a better deal than the UK has, wow, what a noise that would create in the UK. Cameron probably got a bit more than he was able to sell in the UK.

Are you spoiled prats living in the past.

Re: Pop!

Why stop there, why not become the 51st state of the USA.

Re: Don't underestimate the Brits!

"but if the unelected prics in Europe decide to go ahead with TTIP there is nothing European citizens can do."

It's the MEPs I would count on, and they are elected. Unfortunately the Brits have been a bit lazy in those elections (not alone in that). Incidentally Cameron has a voice too, and is elected. Voice enough to pull Britain out of the EU.

As for me, I wish Europe all the best, and that includes Britain the way I see it. The world is a work in progress as before.

Re: See what can happen when you work together?

@ wolfetone

Regarding a curvy cucumber. In some countries like Finland and Sweden cucumber is grow, during the winter, inside using electric light. The result is a thin, curvy and bitter piece of shit compared to the straight thick and juicy ones you get in the more sunny parts of Europe.

Suppose then that somebody in say Paris who sells stuff like that, decided, due to the common market, to get half a ton of those Nordic cucumbers.

That poor guy would be unable to sell and if he did he would lose his customers.

There is more to regulations sometimes than meets the eye.

Re: Two Stages

"Much of the Remain argument has been about how the EU is going to be nasty and mean to the UK in the event of a Leave vote."

No, that I have seen only among commentards. Suppose you are a member of a Golf Club but a pal of yours decides to stop paying for his membership and then turns up demanding his old "advantages", Would you not smile and say - Sorry, members first. That's not nasty nor mean. Perhaps you should be a bit reasonable. Eating the cake and all that.

Re: Did UK make ever something positive to make EU stronger?

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

Perhaps this will help.

Re: Other than screens and batteries

@ DougS

I don't fully agree. There is a lot about how TVs are made to fail faster. Special screws made by Apple to screw you, and such. Take a look at ifixit. I, for instance, will never by a cellphone that prevents me to replace the battery on the go.

Re: So why is Brexit the answer?

@ Voyna i Mor

"That would involve a whole lot of politicians and civil servants having to learn some foreign languages".

Do you actually understand that the British are the ones who have the highest chance of being understood in they native language in the EU. No other country/language in the EU has that advantage, no even close. As for education, it should and could always be better but I am not all that worried about the British.

Not related to your comment at all, but I have been wondering about the Brexit people who for some reason seem to claim the UK is the fifth biggest economy in the world.

Still what I find is this list. Not that it should matter but when claims are dubious it starts to sound a bit Trumpish to say the least.

COUNTRY COMPARISON :: GDP (PURCHASING POWER PARITY)

Rank Country GDP (PURCHASING POWER PARITY) Date of Information

1 China $19,390,000,000,000 2015 est.

2 European Union $19,180,000,000,000 2015 est.

3 United States $17,950,000,000,000 2015 est.

4 India $7,965,000,000,000 2015 est.

5 Japan $4,830,000,000,000 2015 est.

6 Germany $3,841,000,000,000 2015 est.

7 Russia $3,718,000,000,000 2015 est.

8 Brazil $3,192,000,000,000 2015 est.

9 Indonesia $2,842,000,000,000 2015 est.

10 United Kingdom $2,679,000,000,000 2015 est.

11 France $2,647,000,000,000 2015 est.

12 Mexico $2,227,000,000,000 2015 est.

13 Italy $2,171,000,000,000 2015 est.

.........

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2001rank.html

(the CIA collects official data)