Posts by Asterix the Gaul

All that ship owners care about is money.

'Flags of convenience' killed of the Merchant Navy, making the 'Red Duster' history.

Back in the early- late 60's, I did my time in the North Atlantic, the Arctic Ocean, North Sea & English Channel.

The last of which, apart from one storm in '68, whilst serving on Light-vessels as a Lights-man 1st Class, we dragged anchor for one mile, led to the vessel becoming off-station & issued the relevant 'Notice to Mariners.

Trinity House, my then employer, in existence since Henry 8, is funded by ''Light Dues', paid by ship owners using UK ports, which funds all Lighthouses & Light-vessels(now redundant).

Pilots are self-employed.

The ship owners always resent paying their 'dues', which led to 'automation' of light stations around the coast.

I am long retired, possibly the last of any Light-vessel crew alive, our duties were primarily the safety of mariners at sea, an honourable tradition, of which I am proud to have served my part in the provision of.

The interest of ship owners stands in sharp contrast to everyone else in the marine environment & governments operate too closely with the interest of the ship owners as opposed to other mariners.

With the automation of Light-vessels, it was only to be expected that the navigation & propulsion of sea going ships would follow the path of automation.

I wonder how long before the loading\unloading of container ships will be fully automated in ports?

'Capitalism' is blind, it knows the price of everything, the value of nothing.

Francis(Pope) explained that both scientific theories('BIG BANG' - 'EVOLUTION') were not incompatible with the existence of a creator – arguing instead that they “require it”.

ERR!..NO, It does NOT 'require it' DUMMY!

“When we read about Creation in Genesis, we run the risk of imagining God was a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything. But that is not so,” Francis said.

Oh NO! BUT, this(Below)is exactly ("he 'created' human beings)what you are saying((GOD was a magician with a 'magic' wand) .He added: “He created human beings and let them develop according to the internal laws that he gave to each one so they would reach their fulfilment.

“The Big Bang, which today we hold to be the origin of the world, does not contradict the intervention of the divine creator but, rather, requires it..

^..,B$,B$ B$ ad infinitum.

“Evolution in nature is not inconsistent with the notion of creation, because evolution requires the creation of beings evolve.”

ANYTHING that ANY 'religion' or it's 'leaders' say is just plugging 'LIES','LIES' & NO 'Statistics', a complete vacuum of reasoning.

'Tooth Fairies'

'Big Bang Theory' = Sigma - 5

'God' = Sigma - 0

Starlink

If I recall correctly, Musk gave a figure of (4K?) satellites for his global internet coverage.

I cannot understand how placing the initial few launches in areas with poor coverage would make commercial sense, as most are likely to be poorer places.

Place them over Europe first, he will make a killing by taking on the likes of BT, Virgin, Sky & others in mainland Europe.

I for one would happily signup.

Never read her books or seen any of her films,however, I am happy to pay my humble male tributes to a lady,who, by reputation, was a very productive,creative & balanced member of the human race.

The Ecuadorean government should accredit Julian ASSANGE with diplomatic status in another friendly country,for which he could then claim diplomatic immunity in the UK, job done, F'CK the USA & the UK gov't.

It's NOT Italy that's corrupt, it's BT & we in the U.K are now paying for it with massive price increases.

I want to see BT referred to the E.U for investigations, followed by supermassive fines if found to be operating corruptly, as I suspect.

Maybe they were using cheap Chinese Lithium-ion batteries bought off e-bay & when charged gave off a nice firework display?

M$ are getting desperate on W10 market share.

Think about it for a millisecond, a company trashes the reputation of one of it's (better)products(W7), in order to sell more of it's more recent rubbish.

How do they expect to push sales on their products, when all they do is out the lack of quality in them.

I was using W7 before W8 came out, I predicted the failure of that & I also predicted that M$ would 'clone' Apple's business model to suit themselves.

To my knowledge, M$ couldn't run a boot fair stall profitably, judging it by it's acquisitions over the last decade or two.

It's a contradiction in terms, one either does, or does NOT 'believe'.

Screw 'faith', give me 'certainty'.

Alternatives

Elon MUSK recently declared his intention to launch a global internet service by launching(4,425) satellites from Space X.

"The system is designed to provide a wide range of broadband and communications services for residential, commercial, institutional, governmental and professional users worldwide."

This will take around ten years, with an initial 800 sat's being deployed.

I think that he could be onto a winner here if BT landline & broadband charges are anything to go by.

I am well into my seventh decade, I hope these come about before I go up the chimney, as I am sick of 'rip-off' UK & would happily help the guy by signing up for the service(providing it's cheap0

Unlike BT\Open Reach, Musk is offering over 2GB\sec for users, that should help Stream providers, hopefully, it will kill off the BBC at the same.

However, I think that ALL countries should finance the eventual removal of end-of-life sat's from around the planet, because of the effects on future space launches.

In the extreme, if we ever needed to escape from Earth or deal with an incoming asteroid, we would potentially be well & truly screwed.

If it's good enough for any state to carry out mass surveillance & blanket data collection of it's citizens then it must surely be right that citizens of those countries be lawfully entitled to do likewise to their government.

In the meantime, the best form of defence to attack,is to harden your defences.

To that end,I suggest that all users of communication hardware encrypt everything,hard drives,emails, all files,folders, protect your Firewall & router by changing default passwords to stronger ones using short phrases combined with non-alphabetic characters.

I am absolutely against all religion, this 'dark matter'-'dark energy' malaki is becoming just that, all 'theory', by all account,the 'theory' has been adopted as 'FACT' & I call B$ until scientifically proven.

To say that the missing galactic 'mass' is of a ratio of 6-1,as stated, is pure speculation & wildly inaccurate.

My 'guess' is that the actual mass 'Baryonic' matter = 7-7 of the total, anything else is a 'mystery', 'miracle' or psuedo-scientific religion, based on ideological nonsense.

Like ALL 'religion',it's based on simple ignorance, wishful thinking, 'blind' faith & an absolutely fictitous guesswork.

When I see the 'evidence', appraised by peer review,I might consider that DE\DM exist, until then,I will retain my healthy scepticism.

Even so-called time served theoretical physicist are no better than 'religious' believers when it comes to having 'faith' in unsubstantiated speculative nonsense.

During the referendum debate, I thought that Leadsom held the 'high-ground, by actually responding to questions in a dignified, non-dogmatic & unemotional way.

Shortly after she began coming out with talk about her 'religious' beliefs, along with other comments that made me change my opinion of her.

I'm sorry to say that, what was once a positive opinion of her, has now become a complete switch-off.

It's a sad thing to acknowledge, but the U.K is well & truly NOT served by any politician\party currently in existence.

I think perhaps that it's well past time that ALL politicians have a 'rating' given by the public, who can call time on them.

'legitimacy'

So,lets get this right,if Brussels ays that 'English' no longer has any legitimacy' in Brussels,then does that not mean that it's pointless discussing the outcome of the referendum with them?

Maybe they are either 'racist' or they cannot speak 'Queen's' English.

Bill GATES backing the FBI in the unlocking of an iPad, I do NOT believe it.

He just unlocks the backdoor to WINDOWS for the NSA\FBI.

Speaking for myself,the right to 'freedom of expression' overrides any 'right' not to be offended.

If you can't stand the heat,get out of the bloody kitchen.

IMHO, politicians here & in the E.U are using people's sensitivity to words they don't like,as an excuse to negate those very right's of 'free expression' that governments signed up to in 1948 after WW2 with the Geneva Convention on Human Rights.

Whenever I service laptops for family members,I always tell them that their cam should always be assumed to be turned ON.

Knowing that,it becomes easier to convince them of the most effective way to ensure their privacy from hacks.

I stick some black insulating tape over the lens on laptops,if they are silly enough to want to talk over the net whilst displaying their funny bits',well, that's up to them & they are also likely to 'forget' to cover it up afterwards.

I have never ever used a web cam for it's intended purpose,I have used a CCD type for astronomy,but I have never ever 'trusted' them or the software.

Considering ALL WINDOWS machines are inherently vulnerable,thanks to Bill GATES,I think it's wiser to just use your mobile phone to communicate,even though HMG snaffel every bit of data for their egocentric paranoia.

IMHO,the reason that PC sales slumped globally is pretty obvious,the 'global' downturn.

Knowing Microsoft,with their 'more money than sense' attitude,it would NOT have occurred to them,that a global 'downturn' = less disposable income globally,therefore prices ought to fall,in order to maintain sales at the cost of reduced profits.

That is plain common sense, maintain sales revenue,keep tightening up on cost overheads & hope for increasing market share in a shrinking global business pool until the global 'recovery'.

In the UK, utility companies fleece the consumer, 'regulators' are bought & paid for by the utility companies along with Ministers in government.

That's the logical explanation for government indifference to utility price increasesm, that depress consumer spending, prolonging 'austerity' & reducing consumer spending from less disposable income.

As for replacing my PC rig, I have always assembled my own,I still have,as well as intend to keep my current rig for years to come.

It's comprised of a an ASUS Z77 Sabertooth mobo,3770K cpu,16GB Corsair Vengenace LP RAM, x1 INTEL 530 -240GB SSD,x2 INTEL 530 120GB SSD's & Nvidia GTX670 GPU.

It's really quick,it boots W7 64bit in 5 sec's flat,plays any game at good frame rates with no lag.

In addition,my EIZO FlexScan HD2441W displays top notch graphics,it cost £950 & was worth every penny I spent on it nearly 10 years ago.

I have troubleshooted hundreds of computers for people over the years, I find that a lack of regular maintenance & 'tuning-up' is a major factor in 'slow' running computers,as are app's like AV,which 'hog' resources.

Again,WINDOWS itself eats up drive space,with updates taking more than the O.S itself.

Any really 'old' laptop\desktop will benefit from a properly set up Linux distro to give a new lease of life.

From Doom-sayers to Doom-makers

By what reason do so-called 'scientist' take it upon themselves to set this planet,it's inhabitants,it's evironment on terre firma & the sky above to unacceptable risk?

To use this 'experiment' as a model for the real thing is not valid.

These fragments of meteorites,that have already landed on earth,does not validate the 'experiment'.

Such fragments will be acting on matter already modified by entry through our atmosphere.

Any meteorite fragmented by laser in it's direct approach to Earth, willl possibly fragment,with much of the matter scattering,before being set through the atmosphere, or, placed in orbit above.

If the latter,it will endanger many orbiting satelites,possibly interupting communications & causing unnecessary dangers for any future launches from the ground.

America,being 'America', displays the absolute arrogance of absolute power that it has bestowed upon itself.

"introducing contraband into a detention facility"

Now, that's a novel description 'detention facility' for lady parts,I would happily be 'detained' there on a permament basis.

Who called the 'Pope' a DOPE,who called the DOPE a 'Pope'?

I 'm all for BT being split up,but not sure how their offer is genuine,as the promise ignores those already on slow speeds & 40mb\sec is 'slow' by 'superfast' comparison.

The majority,who have fibre to 'cabinet' are ignored in this 'offer',so how it equates to 95% enjoying 'superfast',appears to be a 'LIE'.

As a long time BT user, what pisses me off, is the raising of prices when they are already making £4 BILLION profit in one year,when so-called 'regulators' actually 'regulate' NOTHING AT ALL.

In the face of the above, BT would still be pumping up the price increases,enough is enough.

If the government abandoned smart meters, that money would have been better spent on 'superfast broadband,as well as splitting up BT.

It's funny how some young naive folks believe that,"If you have 'nothing' to hide,you have nothing to fear".

Well, the FACT is,"The NSA\GCHQ have EVERYTHING to hide & NOTHING to fear" .

Their grandfathers\mothers fought two world wars to avoid the situation's that these people are now subject to.

This makes me LMFAO,the NSA\GCHQ are taking the proverbials.

Ever changed a login name\user password on some site & get the whole caboodle in plain TEXT in a 'confirmation' email from the website?

It's a known FACT that NSA\GCHQ collect the content of ALL emails & share the data between them.

It doesn't take a high IQ to figure out just how stupid these sites are,when they do this.

I blame Microsoft for the above mess,one should be able to use a PINsentry device as a password system,it's impossible to defeat as only the pin holder knows the key & any capture is pointless when it's only valid one time.

UK 'Englishman & women' are NOT EU 'citizens',we are subjects of England,our rights are not commutable to any EU laws.

We ARE 'subjects' , our historic\current rights are NOT amenable to either EU rules or even 'Parliamentary' curtailment,our 'common' rights are outside of any legislature moderation.

Under our common law, virtually ALL law made is 'illegal' because it violates the settlement at Runnymeade which gave the people a 'contract' outside of parliament(which did not exist back then)between the Monarchy,the Lords spiritual & Temporal,the Barons & the 'Commoners'

The EU is smothering a blanket of power & deceit over our constitutional rights aided & abetted by a corrupted Westminster parliament.

The diktats of Brussels should be challenged or avoided by our withdrawl from that corrupt institution of BIG BUSINESS & THE INCESTUOUS RELATIONSHIP THAT IT HAS BOUGHT WITH CONSUMERS MONEY, the so-called E.U.

WTF are they,or our government, to control our everyday lives by acting like the the former East German State's STASI,in monitoring every activity that we undertake in our lives.

We need a 'revolution' to cut out the vermin that are eliminating our freedoms at every opportunity.