Posts by John Mangan

Re: Perhaps someone can explain something to dumb old me.

@erst I've seen that video before and I think it is an excellently clear explanation of what that blurry photo is revealing.

Re: 2nd question

@JetSetJim/Wellyboot

I bl@@dy knew I would miss something! I wrote MPc on one side and then the value for Pcs on the other.

I thought the answer looked a bit large but didn't have time to check my working.

Thanks for the correction (and not laughing).

Re: All electromagnetic radiation harmful?

Turn off the lights!! Aaaghh, my eyes!!

@werdsmith

Agreed. I've lost track of the number of Remainer calling it the 'British Brexit Corporation' and the number of Leavers saying it is completely Remain-biased (I don't think they've come up with a 'clever' acronym).

I take the view that nothing is perfect (e.g. letting woo-woo practitioners 'balance' sound scientific evidence) but when two sides of an argument both consider one particular source to be biased against them I think that's reasonable marker that the source is:

a: trying to be balanced

b: not so far off balanced you need a compass to find your way back.

Re: Hmmm

@0laf

Agreed. I've always thought the critical step was checking that you had all the parts and laying them out in a rational manner. As long as you have enough room to work in after that it really is straight-forward - and I've got stuff that is well into it's third decade.

I did have some flat-pack furniture from a different supplier one time where the bolts and holes just didn't line up. It was clearly a manufacturing error. I got it replaced and the new one had the same problem so refund time. I've yet to experience that with Ikea.

Re: Is Musk aware of the strength of the unions and employment laws in Germany ?

He probably couldn't wait for the full post-brexit labour deregulation in the UK. And then the tariffs . . . .

Re: Hummmm... wut ?

@bpfh

Exactly my reaction. A whole article about one school in China piloting this and one sentence about wider use in the US.

I'm searching for a word . .. . oh yes, balance.

Re: If he wasn't such an obviously stupid man

@phuzz

Maybe it's the fact that the royal families of Europe inter-married so much that made it socially acceptable?

Well, if it's good enought for His Highness . . . . .

Equally perhaps the strongly anti-establishment views of the first settlers pushed them strongly the other way.

NOTE: I know absolutely nothing about this subject but I was provoked by your interesting question.

Re: Does the UK require citizenship for .uk domains?

@downvoter - you can downvote facts all you like. It doesn't stop them being facts.

Re: Humans Not Optional?

@Mister Fluffy

That's easy for you to say.

@Nick Kew

"MAYBE: my little indulgence - a dispenser for chilled water and ice, all plumbed in (would be a YES except that it's only available on "american style" models)."

Say YES, you'll never regret it.

Re: Ownership

!All foreigners aren't equally 'foreign'.!

All allies aren't equally trustworthy.

@Esme

I tried REALLY hard but I could only upvote this once, sorry.

Re: It's life Jim,...

Some assembly required.

Re: TL;DR they were badly advised by their own accountants ?

From memory; accountants take no responsibility if they make a mistake.

(That's probably an over-simplification which an accountant can correct but I've got more than one acquaintance that had run-ins with HMRC and the accountants were able to back away with a sympathetic smile).

Re: The Electric Monk was a labour-saving device,

@batfink

All hail the genius of Douglas Adams!

Damn! Beaten by seconds. By the OP though, so that's not so bad.

Re: Cut the bullsh^H^H^H rhetoric.

Stop blaming the EU for the British government brandishing no deal as a good thing.

No deal means, well, 'no deal'. So anything you want to continue to work needs to be agreed - a deal if you will - which the UK government doesn't want, thinks is a million to one shot, but probably will happen so be ready, you know, just in case . . . .

Re: Dodgy Excuses

@TimeMaster T

Thanks, that's a new favourite XKCD for me!

What other similes could unexpectedly not do our species any favours? Discuss.

Re: How are you counting those jobs?

Not to mention the 'ghost' jobs that are just there to harvest CVs.

A few years ago when looking for a job I read a description that was word for word identical to one that a former colleague had written (it had first been advertised when I worked with him).

Thinking to short-circuit the whole agency thing I rang him direct to be told that, yes, that was his advert but, no, he wasn't recruiting.

That's as well as the jobs that you ring up and ask if they are still short-listing and after receiving a reply in the affirmative you send your CV in. 24 hours later when you ring to see if it was considered suitable you find that 'budgets have been modified', 'the business is restructuring' or some other bollocks.

Job adverts are very little indication of anything - except that recruitment agents are scum..

Re: "mobile versions will be easy to scale quickly"

@eldakka all good points and fair but I think part of the issue was the way the contract was awarded. There appears to have been no public tendering process and companies that actually had experience running ferry services, e.g. the tunnel company, weren't invited - leading to the big payoff after they sued the government for violating competition rules. And then other ferry companies sued the government as well because their competitors were effectively being subsidised.

I think the ferry company having no ferries (the point you were addressing) was just an easy flag to stick on the TL:DR version so that everyone knew who to snicker at.

Re: Heavy...

@John Lilburne

I came across the story years ago. I just love that multi-generational forethought.

Makes you wonder if there is a nomadic tribe wandering the desert protecting the Mummy's tomb?

Re: Re. LISA

I don't know where the intrusive '1' came from - it's not next to '0' or '3' on the keyboard?

Aerogel has already been used in a vacuum..

..on a cometary sample collection craft if I remember correctly.

Was it the Japanese one that crashed on return but they still managed to retrieve useful samples?

Re: Follow the $

There really aren't enough pejorative terms for that . . . . . entity.

Re: Neal Stephenson will be

I've read both and, probably just due to my own leanings, preferred Seveneves. both good reads though full of interesting detail and obviously obsessively researched

However I feel a persistent disappointment with Stephenson's endings starting way back with 'Snow Crash'. Is it me?

@AC

Well, demographically speaking several hundred thousand affected by this clusterfuck weren't eligible on the date you mentioned.

Many who were eligible and did vote are now dead.

No doubt some who expected to see the easiest trade deal in history signed, sealed and ldelivered by now have become fatigued.

I could go on . . . a bit like May's government's Brexit process.

Re: Faster than light not needed?

There's also the problem that at any appreciable fraction of the speed of light every proton in your path becomes a death-dealing radiation menace.

I'm sure I saw somewhere..

..that in the early days they had support from the government. however when the government then chose to withdraw they paced some sort of embargo on the technology that prevented the designers from getting other funding. It sounds like SOP for our bunch of privileged leather warmers.

Apparently the embargo timed our or was lifted a few years back. If I didn't create this in some fever dream.

I would really like to see this fly before I die.

@Clive Galway

True. But the daily infall of cosmic debris more than makes up for that.