Posts by Lars

Re: unlike floating Arctic ice which lowers sea levels when it melts. ? ? ? ? ?

"How does floating ice fall off land ?". Yes that sounds funny indeed, perhaps it should be "ice fell off land and floated, if it fell in the sea that is. Then again there is this popular belief that tree will float without having to prove it. Very confusing, what I have learned is that if I drop an ice cube into my drink and it does not float then some bastard has emptied my glass or it was the bartender who just pretended to fill it. There is lots you can learn from science. Calling an iceberg a bastard is rather amusing/odd, nor am I at ease with the statement that it was formed in two days. Nitpick icon needed.

Re: I'm impressed as well

I am impressed too, but let us be a bit fair about it. The first missions to Mars took place about 30 years ago. To manage it 30 years later isn't that surprising really and hardly worth mentioning as any "the first".

I am much more impressed with the guys with an Indian background who pop up running big companies like Microsoft and Nokia and many more and that does not surprise me much at all.

In those cases the headline could of course be "First Indian CEO at Microsoft", but that would sound silly, then again perhaps "First Brit-Educated Indian bloke" (not that bloke) might do it.

As for "The Axe" in a later comment, I think you can rest assured GB looted India for such a long time that you should not feel looted by India during your life time. Besides I have a feeling that the foreign aid is more or less finished and India will surpass GB as an industrial country soon. No matter how he turns it, life must be sheer hell for a Brit who doesn't get it and cannot laugh at him self.

I try to help as much as I can.

Re: White hats, Black hats, and Grey hats...

Need no hats, will stick to Linux, and now after 15 years my Windows using wife has become very aggressive, accusing me for forcing her to use a rubbish system while I, of course, use a much better one. So RIP yet an other Windows. Note to my self, remember the root password, and don't mention any such stuff ever. Incidentally the Linux copy/past has annoyed my wife for many years, some of you will understand and some will not.

Re: The CIA World Factbook

@ Joey M0usepad

Try the Wikipedia then.

"In 2015, the largest economies in the world with more than $2 trillion, €1.25 trillion by nominal GDP were the United States, China, Japan, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and India.[7]"

PS. Perhaps you have a "France" problem. In my experience younger Brits have less of those problems.

Re: Let me guess...made in China?

""do anything you have to to make money" attitude still seems strong in China". So tell me where it's not and where all regulations are considered so very bad for the economy.

Re: "Brit-educated bloke"

Pulls India out of the Empire.

Re: "Don't be evil"

I think they have been asking us not to be evil.

Re: Happens often enough here in France

Certainly one has to trust a computer more than a dead man and what's wrong with the last known address. As a programmer I know all you need to fuck up something by intent or by accident is a computer.

Re: (Some joke about code Nazis)

So Ubuntu, based in London, is what? And Chaplin when based in the USA was American.

@Hans 1.Yes indeed, Oracle moved to Linux desktops internally years ago. I have worked in fairly big and fairly well run IT companies and I know it's a hell of a problem to keep track of all the licenses used. Invoices are cleared by people who don't know enough about it. And developers/programmers feel it's not their job to report on what's in use and what has been scrapped years ago. It's not just Oracle it's all of it including even hardware. The more people involved the more difficult it gets, and the invoices just keep coming.

Re: @phil dude

@DougS

I have a feeling you are not as mixed up with socialist and social as so many Americans seem to be. It's social security not socialist security, it's a social person not a socialist person, social awareness not socialist awareness and so forth. Sanders sometimes refers to the Nordic countries Germany and other countries. Countries with affordable education and health care for everybody plus private schools and private hospitals side by side. Non of the American shit with preconditions and people selling their houses because somebody in the family is sic or worrying if they can afford their kids university education. Progressive taxation where the richer pay a higher rate and not the opposite way. Common sense stuff supported from the left to the right in European countries. There are social democratic parties in all of Europe even if the name might vary. Sanders is a social democrat.

The interesting thing with Trump is that he has quite some support among Republicans if not as much perhaps as Sanders among Democrats. I think it's a good thing and what has happened in the USA is that people are waking up, realizing that they are run by people who do not represent them at all.

For the Republicans this will be more difficult to deal with as switching you voting habit is damned difficult. I know, and I would claim divorcing was easier. Trump is a joke, Sanders on the other hand is educated, smart, experienced and honest.

This youtube link is quite interesting and if you cannot see the difference between social and socialist then the Republican party was a socialist party in 1958, and it was not, just a decent party with some social awareness. Somehow I hope Americans start to realize what has happened to that party.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Slzc-DucvH0

I am a Obama fan too, but I must admit I had no clue he has such influence regarding Nokia or was it Audi & Co, your comment is slightly unclear in that respect.

Re: Too polite

Perhaps, but if you have worked in a profession where customer service is needed you will know that "polite" is a weapon like silence too. With my 35 years in IT I can assure you that shouting will just increase the time lost with "idiots". With five years as a taxi driver I can assure you it's the same, and silence can be a really lethal weapon too, no good for a 999 emergency though. Polite is in fact quite a weapon.

Re: No surprise at all

So should we give up or try harder.

"So it is doing what ancient Rome (and yes, Germany in WWII) ended up having to do: gobble up territory in order to use *those* funds to keep the people at home happy."

Sorry, but wasn't that true with the Empire too, perhaps that's too close to call.

The TTIP should be scrapped completely, a trade agreement should be about trade, short and clear.

The problem, as I see it, is that multinational large corporations want to write the rules. We can write about cultural differences, democracy and what ever but we should remember that those types of considerations where never a part given or demanded of corporations. We, the people, write the rules (how naive that has started to sound) for them to adhere to, not the opposite way.

Some Americans have started to see what has happened to their country, do we need to copy that.

Re: It was the devil

That snake was apparently wise enough to emigrate to South America in time. Incidentally perhaps those hands and legs gave it an advantage as a swimmer, but the again legs are made for walking among sea sick boffins.

Re: Sea sick boffins

@asdf. I cannot prove you wrong, of course. But I think you should look at the charts of the sea currents of the oceans and why not talk with somebody who has (there are thousands) sailed from the Canaries to the West Indies in very small boats very easily, mostly downwind and assisted by the sea current. Which reminds me of a British guy we met in Las Palmas 1963. His name was Proctor and he had built his yacht "Puppy Duck"? himself. The yacht was about 6m long and smaller than the one I sailed when I was 11 years old. A very nice old guy who told us he rather sails the oceans than rot at home. Anybody who know anything about him. His next stop was the West Indies.

Also your comment about 2500BC might imply that you think people where less intelligent then than now. Personally I don't think we have more brains now than say 40 000 perhaps 100 000 years ago. (how much has the brain of an alligator improved in that time). Which reminds me of a very silly movie about stone age people who had difficulties walking like they suffered from arthritis. Why, I rather think they where as fast and moved as gracefully as the African who win marathons to day. Not that long ago dinosaurs where pictured as slow bastards dragging their huge tail behind them going tut tut tut.

And is it not funny how civilization has been born by a river or/and the sea. And what about Noah, a silly story older than the bible but there was a boat all the same.

Quite frankly, and while I can prove nothing, nor can sea sick boffins prove anything either. I do believe they greatly underestimate our ancestors ability to sail the oceans. As for losing boats we are constantly losing every possible device we build and do I need to mention banana peel too.

Re: Google runs on Linux

Yes, the only surprise here is your comment, or is it.