* Posts by JLV

2252 publicly visible posts • joined 4 Mar 2013

Dropbox would rather write code twice than try to make C++ work on both iOS and Android

JLV
Mushroom

There we go again with Mr My Language Uber Alles

It was tedious when it was the COBOL guys 30 years ago. Tedious when Java’s AbstractStrategyFactory roamed the land. And it certainly is tedious in 2019 where a number of languages are available, one of which C++, is rightly, quite appreciated for many purposes: system, device and game programming and indeed anywhere where performance is critical.

Are you saying a Todo app in iOS ought to be written in C++? Why? Speed optimization? What about a website (not a web server)? C++ to marshal tons of character pointers into html? A database batch processing program? Non-perf critical business logic code? And, no don’t yap on about “just iOS and Android”, this is a general question because you’ve stated before all the rest of us are hobbyists for not using your particular type of hammer to put in our screws.

Can elaborate your reasoning on this? How are you going to address the skill gap where a moderately skilled programmer, not a deity like yourself of course, can write program X in any number of high level GC languages but would struggle to do it securely in C++?

Anyone _else_ who likes and codes well in C++, respect and no dissing intended. Having mastered a hard language most assuredly need not turn everyone into a twat.

Apple's WebKit techs declare privacy circumvention to be a security issue

JLV

Re: Safari?

Nuking Flash from orbit was certainly a visionary move. +1.

JLV

Re: Safari?

YMMV but I really, really, dislike Safari*. Except for its no-clutter reader mode. So, while I mostly use Firefox now, I did use Chrome before.

I find the Safari iOS UI incredibly dumbed pared down, which annoys me just as much as Edge’s stupid no-menu crusade. Let me decide how I want to use a program, damnit!

* one of the things that got my goat was their past asinine refusal to support HTTP verbs like PUT, DELETE, back in Jobs’ days. Must have been a right pain to the REST crowd. Jobs could be brilliant, but not all the ways he thought the world should spin made sense, if you recall the “one mouse button is enough!” days. People tend to forget that about him and either idolize him or only make fun of his PR gaffes like “holding it wrong”.

JLV

Safari?

If it’s a Webkit stance, seems to me it will also apply to Chrome on iOS.

Interesting gambit Apple has been taking of late, certainly with a hefty helping of self-interest and profit-seeking, to really push privacy as a brand/marketing strategy. Given the growing distrust of FB, Google & MS privacy handling it seems clever for a company that happens _not_ to rely on ads to try to screw those who do.

Their only big competitor in that space being Linux.

MS should take heed: telemetry can’t be _that_ valuable, revenue wise and it obviously didn’t avert 1809 issues.

Astroboffins have spied the largest star that has gone supernova and it's breaking all the rules

JLV

Re: Soup

Perhaps. But just because he revels in his ignorance doesn’t mean he needs to look down on boffins and human curiosity.

People asking questions and solving mysteries is why we’re able to commentard here and not just sacrificing sheep to the Harvest Goddess.

WeWork filed its IPO homework. So we had a look at its small print and... yowser. What has El Reg got itself into?

JLV

Re: The Khassoghi thing

A wise use of AC privileges. I saw what you did.

JLV
Thumb Up

Yesssss. But please put that through the hipster, not PHB, transform.

JLV
Unhappy

>1980s hits playing 24/7 in the lobbies

As someone who grew up during that period, I find this an exceedingly harsh and cruel punishment, only marginally topped by constant serenades of Dua Lippa, Kathy Perry and Rihanna @ Starbucks.

For the rest? It’s 2000 all over again, yay baby! Pets.com anyone? It’d be funny to see such clueless sub-optimal businesses, if they didn’t suck up so much cash. All they are is a specialized business landlord, i.e. a business where costs assuredly scale up with volume, unlike software orr manufacturing. If they haven’t figured out how to make money by now, why figure they will in the future? “Global consciousness” aside.

Donald Trump blinks in his one-man trade war with China: US govt stalls import tariff hike on Chinese phones, laptops, electronics

JLV

Re: "I saved the Christmas!!!"

”love thy neighbour" and "turn the other cheek" underlined.

But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.

?

An Army Watchkeeper drone tried to land. Then meatbags took over from the computers

JLV

Re: Army culture vs Air Force culture

Interestingly enough, some years back, when it came to US drones, the outcome was somewhat opposite. (not sure if Reapers or Predators, but same model in the study).

USAF: certified pilots, they control landings

US Army: specialized NCOs, drone software auto-lands. Fewer crashes.

IIRC landing was statistically _the_ leading cause of drone loss. Related: Predator drones provides exceedingly narrow “tunnel vision” to its operator - their cameras are geared to long distance zooms for observation/missile launches, not wide field of view for self-positioning. I say “had” because maybe they’ve added auxiliary sensors.

Not disagreeing with you. Different services, different drones.

Tor pedos torpedoed again, this time Feds torpedo four Tor pedos – and keep how they unmasked dark-web scumbags under wraps

JLV

“Damn the tor pedos!”

I feel bad for the cops, jury and everyone that has to look at the evidence in the process of sending these scums to jail. Of course, the victims most of all, but that’s a given. Must be super hard to choose that and stick with it as a law enforcement career.

Crunch time: It's all fun and video games until you're being pressured into working for free

JLV

Re: "productivity, employee morale and retention"

They run, like some other industries like retail (for grads), a pyramid scheme. Suck in a lot of fresh grads. Pay poorly, work harshly, work long. Survival of whoever puts up with it. The rest quit.

Presto, you now have a promotion path to the next level up in org. Bump up survivors to the next paygrade. Run that same lil game at level 2, with the bait of level 3. And suck in the next batch for level 1.

I suspect a lot of this also boils to hazing psychology - “well, we had to do it in our time” - because the economics of running knowledge intensive workers at 70+ hr weeks are not clear. You can do it for a 2-3 wk burst but quality and creativity goes down if it’s institutionalized. c.f. medical interns, except there it can mean someone dying rather than a video game crash.

Bit of a time-saver: LibreOffice emits 6.3 with new features, loading and UI boosts

JLV

Re: lost work

Eh, I’m pretty sure git never loses anything once committed. As long as you can find the last commit hash - which is non-obvious if you’re back in time and it’s only displaying commits up to whenever you backtracked.

Advice: always do a commit, a git log and note the last hash and branch name before doing any weird stuff. It won’t save you on truly advanced stuff but will cover basic use.

Detached heads are a constant occurrence if you use ‘git bisect’ which is a git superpower.

And yes, the terminology and railroad diagrams leave me befuddled too :-(. I accept my near cargo cult status but mostly haven’t gotten bitten much.

JLV

Re: Nah

Not that it’s productivity software, but “shouldn’t change just for shits and giggles” would be a very useful design principle if applied to iTunes as well.

And if you want it banished to the nether pits that’s nothing that’s gonna upset me. I was only referring to its frequent cosmetic changes without much functional improvements or even feature changes.

Neuroscientist used brainhack. It's super effective! Oh, and disturbingly easy

JLV

Re: Let me be the first to call this over hypes BS

It’s hard to say. tech is full of moving very quickly from concept to useful: http/html n Wright Bros ‘03 to Bleriot/Sopwith Camel @ ‘11/‘16. Dudes waiting with a bucket of fission retardants in ‘42 to Trinity ‘45.

Then again you have fusion and full AI (both of which, btw, have heavy computing components) and have been 25 yr-imminent for 50-70 yrs.

Stay tuned (but I suspect you might be right)

It's 2019 – and you can completely pwn millions of Qualcomm-powered Androids over the air

JLV
Black Helicopters

On their own phones, how does Google’s 3 yr from first sale updates countdown play into this?

Do they provide security patches past that?

The sea is dangerous and no one likes robots, so why not send a drone on rescue missions?

JLV

Re: Surveillance?

An Orion is a very different beast than a 7kg drone with a 3hr loiter time and 5x5 mile or 1x10mi search capability. A swarm of these looks like a help to look for something nearby you know is somewhere there, within a short timeframe. I.e. a rescue search amplifier. Not something that will rescue. And not something that will watch large areas over long durations.

This is also very much more challenging than dropping a floatation device to visible nearby swimmers in calm weather.

The weather aspect is important as well. This needs to deal with conditions where you might assume smugglers would prefer to stay home.

JLV
Pint

Re: Surveillance?

To be fair, you don't sound like a douche. Upvoted you too. But that post did annoy me because of the reasons mentioned. So lemme rather say the post was douchy and I do those too.

I know a lot of us are also a bit cranky about yet another senseless set of killings, with one of them clearly attributable to fear-mongering when it comes to immigrants. I don’t see _this_ suited as border surveillance or privacy invading tech. But, yeah, tons of that crap making the rounds in general. Crime’s generally trending down, aside from mass shootings and those are only getting thoughts and prayers.

p.s. don't make it a habit of upvoting disagree-ers. it’s weird.

JLV

Re: Surveillance?

We’re talking about a search and rescue technology. The _only_ thing you had to say about it was a “clever” burb about surveillance state paranoia, in a context where that does not readily apply. And which was not mentioned in the article. Had you said anything else worthwhile or even technical as well, I’d have kept my mouth shut.

Whether it will work or, as another poster remarks is an entirely different question. But I believe it worth investigating.

FWIW, my area also sees frequent searches for lost hikers and skiers, not all of which have happy outcomes, so this is of particular interest even if wooded mountainous terrain SAR is very different.

But always mixing polarized politics with engineering and science is getting tedious. Much as I share concern about erosion of civil liberties.

JLV
Thumb Down

Re: Surveillance?

As someone living near the often dangerous Northwest Pacific - you’re a douchebag.

The capabilities and design goals of this tech likely have very in common with more questionable projects like the trialed high altitude surveillance balloons in the news.

- shorter loiter time

- limited area coverage

- de-emphasis on identification of people as opposed to just finding people.

- a certainly legitimate concern to save live at sea.

JLV

Good idea, as far as sea rescue goes.

Now, don’t you find it funny that a _government_ technology project as innovative and edge-pushing as this has more likelihood to achieve success than say something as banal as an Armed Forces recruitment system, at a fraction of the cost? To a large extent that may be due to a different breed of providers. But one also has to wonder about the buyer-side project management differences.

Now, I know nothing’s done yet. But mostly we’ve learned to expect failure at big backend/ERP government projects and have higher expectations with specialized technical/scientific IT. F35, along with a good deal of military procurement, being an obvious counterexample.

Broadcom billionaire Henry Nicholas and pal on drugs rap cough up $1m to avoid the clink

JLV

Re: i'd throw him in jail and let joe random go free

And in any case my point was very much intended to be more about how the outcome would have been very different for a poor black man than it was about decriminalization or legalization per se. Same offence, of a level of harm we can agree to disagree on. But likely hard jail time for certain socioeconomic demographics.

JLV

Re: i'd throw him in jail and let joe random go free

the Sackler family’s also exempt from any kinda rational argument

Sackler delenda est

my motto with these fuckers. :-)

JLV

Re: i'd throw him in jail and let joe random go free

Thats entirely true and I agree with you.

Mexico’s agony at the hands of the drug lords’ an example of where my position’s full of shit.

Not being sarcastic. The harder the drugs, the more society has a vested interest to criminalize dealers. Who are supported by “innocent” users.

Whatever else the arguments are, you have a valid point.

(is being nice to people who disagree with you on the net a superpower?)

JLV
Pint

It’s good to be white. And rich.

I lean heavily towards its-their-own-damn-business for possession. You can snort up Fentanyl for all I care, but you should go to jail for a loooong time when dealing it. Fines for mere possession? That’s a debate a society can have, but a criminal record isn’t a, IMHO, useful outcome.

But just contrast this outcome with Joe Random Poor Black Dude being caught with a dime bag of shitty weed. And without level-20 lawyers and $1M to donate...

Good for Nicolas to be let go for something that really only affects himself. Just wish sanity would extend to more cases.

Beer, cuz.

Apple loses FaceTime patent appeal again. And again. And again. And again. And again... yes, it's the fifth time

JLV
Trollface

Remind us again...

Court considerations aside is Virtnex indeed a good faith inventor/engineering firm, with a solid patent for something they actually invented and worked on that’s not being remunerated by a company that can definitely afford to? Or even a solid patent that they purchased?

Or is this sitting in troll land?

At the end of the day, I’d probably cheer for North Korea’s Missile Design Bureau if they were being sued by a patent patent troll.

Icon cuz I suspect know the answer. But it is a serious question because it modifies the article’s meaning and reading significantly.

Inquiring minds want to know.

LibreOffice handlers defend suite's security after 'unfortunately partial' patch

JLV
Flame

When LibreOffice is as juicy a target and has as many users as MS Office, then comparing vulnerability counts will be more relevant. Even the OS is to LO’s advantage as it’s not necessarily Windows.

This NOT to defend MS in the least. It’s more my nature to crack jokes at their expense. And I’m a big fan of Open Source.

But this was a major fail, and as El Reg points out, LO’s PR was mealy-mouthed whereas a straight “Sorry, we screwed up and will do better next” would been just as good.

This whole comparison with MS’ certainly abysmal VBA practices and bug counts smells like whataboutism.

New British Army psyops unit fires rebrandogun, smoke clears to reveal... I'm sorry, Dave...

JLV

Re: It's the right badge.

I don’t agree or disagree on your assessment, but I will remark that occasionally restructuring combat units to work together, under a unified command, _does_ make a difference, even if the underlying capabilities don’t change.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Tenth_Fleet

I’m more thinking of the WW2 ASW* coordination here, but there’s also a cyber angle to 10th now.

Again, no idea if that’s the case here and I’ll even join in a bit o’ cynicism.

* Oh, and no, doubt, early Ww2 USA transport shipping protection practices were risible.

Ouch. Reinstalling Windows 10 again? By 2020, a 'cloud download' may be all you need

JLV

Re: Noop

I don’t entirely get this. Wouldn’t it be possible to boot a minimal generic keyboard/wifi/GUI stack, inventory/probe the installed hardware and then automatically do the equivalent of an apt-get to a MS repo of manufacturer-sourced drivers?

Works for Linux too. Apple controlling the stack isn’t a prereq for solid system engineering and I’m tired of that as a MS get out of jail card.

Vendors aren’t exactly always easy to find your way around. Plus, ASUS got pwned & Lenovo’s little cert malware...

JLV
Trollface

Re: "download a pristine copy of the OS from Microsoft's cloud servers"

Stable as a Windows impacted by a rock?

JLV

Re: "download a pristine copy of the OS from Microsoft's cloud servers"

Amen. Which, btw, is another sore subject when it comes to lacking a Time Machine, fully-reliable, consumer-friendly backup built into Windows:

lots of MS’ built-in backup solutions are throttled/C: only/GUI-only. To say nothing of system savepoints, which have proven unreliable in practice.

Time Machine, which has saved my bacon twice, is a big part of what somewhat justifies macOS’ “premium pricing”, IMHO.

Given how flakey Windows is there is no excuse for not bundling a simple, foolproof backup mechanism that spans multiple drives. In the late 90s, that would have been seen as a monopolistic bundling move, detrimental to 3rd party vendors. We’ve passed that point, IMHO.

Oh, it and MS in general also really needs to unbundle system/program configuration from user data. c:\Program Files and equivalents having user data is plain stupid.

Fix LibreOffice now to thwart silent macro viruses – and here's how to pwn those who haven't

JLV

Hey, at least macros had a purpose. One that is pointless for most word processing users and documents. One that really, really, isn’t worth the constant risk so should be packaged off in some special ring-fenced unsafe mode/unsafe viewers.

But the extension hiding? A special hell should await whoever at MS requested such an elective and pointless fail.

Every time a user falls for hidden EXEs, for all eternity, a swarm of red fire ants should eat their liver, while their testicles are crushed by a slow heated and electrified vise and red pepper poured in their eyes.

Sinovski, was that you?

JLV

Re: Depressing featuritis

Wonder what kinda moron downvoted you and the OP. An Adobe developer, maybe?

JLV
FAIL

Why, oh, why?

It’s almost as if, gasp, we needed a consumer-friendly word processor with advanced formatting capabilities.

BUT NO EFFIN MACROS WHATSOEVER.

It could just read ODF/DOCX stuff and ignore macros.

What’s the % of people, and text documents that actually need macros? Does everybody else have to put up with corresponding risks? Ditto Adobe PDFs with active content scripting. Come’on it’s been 15-20 yrs now we know they suck.

Browsers are heavily sandboxed

Word processors are not, shouldn’t have to be, can’t really be (file system access) and have insufficient exposure, unlike browsers facing a hostile internet, to develop a comprehensive immune system.

I am not ranting about spreadsheets, which carry the same risks, but have more general justifications for a macro feature.

MS Word admittedly seems closer with no-macro extensions (but then they fail by hiding extensions). And of course, they’ve made macros a “feature” in the first place.

In any case, packaging a learn-to-program toolkit in a word processor is an act of monumental stupidity. Open source or not. Fail.

P.S. on a related subject, despite being a huge Python fan, the last thing we need is Python as VBA in Office or Python as JS in browsers.

The April 2018 Update is so 1803, snort Windows 10 faithful as more settle down in 1903 town

JLV

I eventually relented and went from 16xx to 1809, around February.

What, you say? The Doomed release?

Well, given how much unflattering coverage it got them and how many times they re-released it, I figured that it had had a lot more QA TLC than usual by then. Calculated risk.

Went fairly well. Only nuked the sound, mute now, inconvenient for a part-gaming secondary PC. Oh and reset the sleep and power settings so that it’s, again, narcoleptic running VMs when I am not on the machine. Figure I’ll take it in to the MS retail store for the first problem. And, for the second, having the Steam launcher open seems to convince it to respect its “never go to sleep when plugged in” setting. Can’t be bothered to, again, spend hours figuring out why that’s not enough, somehow.

The sad thing’s that this low-grade snafu seems not so much 1809-specific as standard Windows 10.

Given the choice, and sufficient familiarity with alternatives, would you trust Windows as your primary OS?

Stones, meet glass house: Mind behind Windows 8 GUI disses Windows 10 over leak

JLV

The captain of the Titanic criticizing the seamanship of Exxon Valdez’ skipper.

Sleeping Tesla driver wonders why his car ploughed into 11 traffic cones on a motorway

JLV

Re: God loves idiots or He/She wouldn't have made so many of them.

it’s actually even more perverse: the “right” God isn’t “equally available” at all locations: if you’re living in say India, your Gods claim your allegiance, so you wouldn’t necessarily have much option to switch to Christianity. If Allah on the other hand turns out, after death, to have been the correct choice, then we are most unfortunate not to be living in Saudi Arabia.

City-obliterating asteroid screamed past Earth the other night – and boffins only clocked it just 26 hours beforehand

JLV

Re: Not very reassuring, is it

Chicxulub is rated at ~10+ km. Would you say we can be confident we know of _all_ similar extinction-level ones by now? Discounting extra-solar stuff like Oumuamua. What about ones “hiding” on really remote/eccentric/infrequent orbits that haven’t been close enough yet? Do they potentially exist? How would their risk ratio compare mathematically (if you only come by every x1000s of years, that puts you in a very different risk bracket than a 20 yr cycle).

JLV

Re: "Probably"?

Not really. You have very little to back up “we've cleared”. The big C one we all know about was 65M years ago which isn’t that old in a 4000M timeframe, so saying the cosmos has “shot its wad by now” doesn’t do it.

What we do know is that big C nearly wiped out all life on Terra. It’s a remote risk but truly existential. Even runaway global warming, much more likely, doesn’t reach that: oh, it may extinguish thousands of species and displace, if not kill, millions. But humans will still be there, with our trusty roaches and rats as companions.

A good deal of prevention dovetails nicely with better near-space exploration/imaging, which is worthwhile in itself. We don’t need to spend _that_ much money either: you’re basically putting up telescopes, tracking, cataloging and analyzing. A good chunk of that effort is computing which is cheap. Given enough lead time, even C could be deflected with our current tech (we’d “only” have to develop new engineering for it) and that will only improve. And even a city-killer would be nice to avoid.

Fantastic Mr Fox? Not when he sh*ts on your lawn, kids' trampoline and your soul

JLV

Eh, shoot with something _non-lethal/non-permanent_ was my point. Legal too, while you’re at it. Lead? WTF? Not lead. Lead shouldn’t be shot anywhere you don’t capture it.

Wanna use a soft plastic 177 pellet? Be my guest. Just whack it a few times and get it to go elsewhere, without aiming to really wound it. It’s just silly however to go out your way to accommodate a really not particularly threatened animal while we generally ride roughshod over so many other species. Cute as foxes are.

Besides the airport geese, I’ve seen stuff about relocating rats. But we spend $$$ killing rats too. And vanishingly few of us are vegetarian, let alone vegan.

JLV

From pix, I wuz all offended at you dissing Firefox. Or justifying fox hunts.

Oh, real life Fox pests? Get yourself a proper air gun .177. Low power’s fine. Shoot damn thing up the ass. Avoid the eyes, don't want to cripple/kill. These guys are supposed to be real smart, they'll scamper. Think fox-throttling Human in GRRM’s Stone City and appreciate them for a good challenge.

Don’t be Anglo-Canadian and palaver about relocating un-endangered geese away from airports. https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/vancouver-international-airport-scares-record-number-of-birds-from-runways

Instead, yum, https://www.recettes.qc.ca/recettes/recette/oie-rotie-aux-pommes-232448

LightSail 2 successfully unfurls its silvery solar sails, prepares to become a truly solar-powered satellite

JLV

Re: Arthur C Clarke

Please, NOT a button ski lift. Hate those things passionately.

https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-beautiful-female-skier-on-a-button-lift-in-ski-resort-wearing-white-23377020.html

It's so hot, UK needs to start naming heatwaves like we do when it's a bit windy – climate boffins

JLV

Names:

Doubting Donald.

JLV

Anyone else think the wife ad guy really hit the jackpot on his campaign? Love the hot hubby comeback.

https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/there-is-no-such-thing-as-bad-publicity.html

UK cops blasted over 'disproportionate' slurp of years of data from crime victims' phones

JLV

Hard problems here.

Rape is a special crime, in that much of the time there are no witnesses and perpetrators often claim that the sex was consensual. Plus, a lot of rapes involve acquaintances. The comparison to a burglary is specious: no one really expects victim-perpetrator communications there.

I am all for sending rapists to jail for a long time. Given that, the accused need to be able to mount a proper defence. Sounds like the police needs to find appropriate ways to gather evidence, best by working with victim associations. However, a blanket ban on accessing phone records seems like it would severely prejudice the defence. Which, in certain jurisdictions could later even lead to overturning guilty verdicts.

I’d love to hear from the other side, because this article seems very one-sided, even if I totally sympathize with the victim viewpoint. There’s got to a better way and there’s no reason a hell a victim’s phone data should end up in the defendant’s hands. But a proper defence needs to be allowed. somehow.

The other thing missing is that comm records are going to be symmetric: can the police work, and to what extent, from the defendant’s phone, rather than the victim’s?

JLV

Re: Stop using that phone

Ah, yes. Don’t use a phone in order to avoid rape.

That makes a lot of sense, to you?

Just add water: Efficient Energy’s HFC-free chillers arrive in the UK

JLV
Trollface

Re: Strange units

So 1 pound H2O 1 deg F warmer?

Strangely simple and consistent compared to other imperial luminaries like stones (14 is such an under-appreciated prime-based multiple: of course being merely 1 stone overweight sounds waaay better than 14 pounds fatter), miles (5280 feet - what’s the likelihood Joe Schmoe remembers that?). 2pdr guns (do they change the caliber for DU rounds?). Fahrenheit (0 F is coldest ever, uh wait and 96F is body temp, darn 98.6), alcohol proofs (gunpowder playing a prominent role in drinks, somehow). Gallons - 10 pounds of H2O at 62 F.

Knots, because why count sea speed the same as land speed?

Still, air velocity is being left out, lacking the recognition of its own unit, so I propose a new unit, the Swallow. Care should be taken not to name the species so that Imperial Swallow != Merkin Swallow, unlike the fiasco whereby UK mile == US mile (thank Deity for Short Tons vs Long Tons and different UK/US gallons).

Brussels changes its mind AGAIN on .EU domains: Euro citizens in post-Brexit Britain can keep them after all

JLV

Re: The EU will categorically, never ever re-open negotiations on the withdrawal agreement...

On the second point, I’m pretty sure your independent path will serve more as a cautionary tale than anything else. Which is, again, another reason why you can, at best, expect strict-but-just treatment in negotiations with them: they have no incentive to make leaving a success, so no reason to go out of their way, in some ways this is worse than a divorce where accommodation is a good game theory strategy.

Will the EU suffer from the UK’s departure? Probably somewhat. Dogmatic nationalists like you aside, the UK’s been a positive influence and a net contributor. Will the UK suffer more? Well, that seems to be the going bet according to foreign direct investment and forex, esp on a no deal. Even to your central bank. But what do they know, compared to anonymous geniuses like yourself? It’s an interesting experiment, for sure. Always good when someone else makes those even if we rarely get singing horses :-)

Broken generation in Greece? Please. Greed by German and French bankers loaning to that country, sure. But mostly a crappy economy, abysmal tax collection, overgenerous social spending and pensions, knowingly faking official stats to get into the Euro. Without the EU they’d have defaulted, just like Argentina. Which might actually have been better for them.

The gilets jaunes are not a surprising phenomenon to someone French like me, it’s the logical extension of the 68tards’ belief that governments have no right to make any unpopular decisions or reforms _between_ elections and has much less to do with the EU than you think. And are you really upholding Italy as any kind of political or economic model? LOL.

Let’s chat 2 yrs from now and see who was closer. I’ve had the guts to post this to my handle, AC dear.