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Stories and comments across the archive that link to pro.gov.uk.

Comments · 18

  1. I'm not even on your lawn by Woundweavr · · Score: 1 · on How Tech-Savvy Will the Next President Be?

    Damn youngsters with the gyrating pelvis and long hair and hippy polio vaccine!

    Cry me a river geezer. Your age issues are your problem. For someone so wise and learned, you'd think you'd know that ENIAC (the remnants of which I've touched) wasn't the first electronic programmable computer. Educate yourself

    Did the guys who worked on the Model T know more about computers than mechanics today? Your own bias towards "the good old days" is BS. I can (and have) program in assembly. I can and have programmed in punch cards. Its a stupid thing to do in 99% of situations for the former and 100% for the latter. Having used old computers doesn't mean you know more about computers.

    If you had used the creaky mass of matter in your skull instead of knee jerked based on your own age insecurities you'd realize that there is a strong inverse correlation between age and familiarity with technology, especially . Most five year olds know more about surfing the web than more 70 year olds. John McCain is older than concept of the Universal Turing Machine. If you don't think that informs his tech knowledge, I have a series of tubes to sell you.

  2. Re:What? No. by BeerCat · · Score: 1 · on HP Experiments with 'Always On' Camera

    True, digital storage is cheap, but I think the point being made was that if/when (depending on paranoia) the server is blitzed by a degaussing field (or whatever), then it is gone for good, whereas even your slowly rotting real photos can still potentially last longer than any computer system in existence.

    Think how many photgraphs from 50 years ago or older there are, compared with how much digital storage from even 1986 is still viewable without a great deal of effort

  3. Re:Well... by hawkfish · · Score: 1 · on WW2 Aerial Photographs Go Online
    From our safe position in history it's all to easy to criticize, but at the time it probably seemed necessary to try all tactics no matter how dirty.
    Another poster provided this letter from Churchill which seems to suggest that even at the time it was viewed as unnecessary.
  4. Re:Also pictures of dresden genocide? by alext · · Score: 4, Informative · on WW2 Aerial Photographs Go Online

    There might be a statue, and of recent vintage (1992), but Harris was a controversial figure even during the conflict with many questions in Parliament and from the church about the area bombing strategy.

    Here's a letter Churchill nearly sent at the time, saying that he wanted no more "wanton destruction". Not that his position is exactly uncontroversial either, hence this National Archives topic.

    PS Regarding the church position, my father remembers reading comment in newspapers from a Canon Bell condemning area bombing, but surprisingly there doesn't seem to be any record of this books I've read, or on the net.

  5. Re:Also pictures of dresden genocide? by alext · · Score: 4, Informative · on WW2 Aerial Photographs Go Online

    There might be a statue, and of recent vintage (1992), but Harris was a controversial figure even during the conflict with many questions in Parliament and from the church about the area bombing strategy.

    Here's a letter Churchill nearly sent at the time, saying that he wanted no more "wanton destruction". Not that his position is exactly uncontroversial either, hence this National Archives topic.

    PS Regarding the church position, my father remembers reading comment in newspapers from a Canon Bell condemning area bombing, but surprisingly there doesn't seem to be any record of this books I've read, or on the net.

  6. UK & US role in Chilean coup by jdfox · · Score: 2, Interesting · on UK National Archives Divulge Secrets
    Not mentioned in those links is the warm welcome that Britain gave to the military overthrow of the democratically-elected socialist government of Salvador Allende, which led to the deaths, disappearance and torture of thousands of innocent civilians, under 17 years of brutal dictatorship.
    These are the related documents released this week that I've found so far, though I'm still digging:

    The Foreign and Commonwealth Office have reportedly held back all documents relating to the day of the coup, however. I assume they are waiting until Kissinger and other US parties who supported and assisted the coup die of old age, before these are released.

    The overthrow of President Allende in Chile presented the Foreign Office with a refugee problem. "The usual fellow-travelling civil rights organisations will do their best to confuse the distinction [between] respected democratic socialists and undesirables further to the left," a department minute noted. "In view of the growth of terrorism in this country we really cannot knowingly risk admitting terrorists as refugees."

    So calling inconvenient refugees "terrorists" is nothing new, e.g. abandoning thousands on the Chilean left to be murdered by the Pinochet regime, and slamming your doors to legitimate asylum seekers fleeing from "valued trading partners".

  7. UK & US role in Chilean coup by jdfox · · Score: 2, Interesting · on UK National Archives Divulge Secrets
    Not mentioned in those links is the warm welcome that Britain gave to the military overthrow of the democratically-elected socialist government of Salvador Allende, which led to the deaths, disappearance and torture of thousands of innocent civilians, under 17 years of brutal dictatorship.
    These are the related documents released this week that I've found so far, though I'm still digging:

    The Foreign and Commonwealth Office have reportedly held back all documents relating to the day of the coup, however. I assume they are waiting until Kissinger and other US parties who supported and assisted the coup die of old age, before these are released.

    The overthrow of President Allende in Chile presented the Foreign Office with a refugee problem. "The usual fellow-travelling civil rights organisations will do their best to confuse the distinction [between] respected democratic socialists and undesirables further to the left," a department minute noted. "In view of the growth of terrorism in this country we really cannot knowingly risk admitting terrorists as refugees."

    So calling inconvenient refugees "terrorists" is nothing new, e.g. abandoning thousands on the Chilean left to be murdered by the Pinochet regime, and slamming your doors to legitimate asylum seekers fleeing from "valued trading partners".

  8. UK & US role in Chilean coup by jdfox · · Score: 2, Interesting · on UK National Archives Divulge Secrets
    Not mentioned in those links is the warm welcome that Britain gave to the military overthrow of the democratically-elected socialist government of Salvador Allende, which led to the deaths, disappearance and torture of thousands of innocent civilians, under 17 years of brutal dictatorship.
    These are the related documents released this week that I've found so far, though I'm still digging:

    The Foreign and Commonwealth Office have reportedly held back all documents relating to the day of the coup, however. I assume they are waiting until Kissinger and other US parties who supported and assisted the coup die of old age, before these are released.

    The overthrow of President Allende in Chile presented the Foreign Office with a refugee problem. "The usual fellow-travelling civil rights organisations will do their best to confuse the distinction [between] respected democratic socialists and undesirables further to the left," a department minute noted. "In view of the growth of terrorism in this country we really cannot knowingly risk admitting terrorists as refugees."

    So calling inconvenient refugees "terrorists" is nothing new, e.g. abandoning thousands on the Chilean left to be murdered by the Pinochet regime, and slamming your doors to legitimate asylum seekers fleeing from "valued trading partners".

  9. UK & US role in Chilean coup by jdfox · · Score: 2, Interesting · on UK National Archives Divulge Secrets
    Not mentioned in those links is the warm welcome that Britain gave to the military overthrow of the democratically-elected socialist government of Salvador Allende, which led to the deaths, disappearance and torture of thousands of innocent civilians, under 17 years of brutal dictatorship.
    These are the related documents released this week that I've found so far, though I'm still digging:

    The Foreign and Commonwealth Office have reportedly held back all documents relating to the day of the coup, however. I assume they are waiting until Kissinger and other US parties who supported and assisted the coup die of old age, before these are released.

    The overthrow of President Allende in Chile presented the Foreign Office with a refugee problem. "The usual fellow-travelling civil rights organisations will do their best to confuse the distinction [between] respected democratic socialists and undesirables further to the left," a department minute noted. "In view of the growth of terrorism in this country we really cannot knowingly risk admitting terrorists as refugees."

    So calling inconvenient refugees "terrorists" is nothing new, e.g. abandoning thousands on the Chilean left to be murdered by the Pinochet regime, and slamming your doors to legitimate asylum seekers fleeing from "valued trading partners".

  10. UK & US role in Chilean coup by jdfox · · Score: 2, Interesting · on UK National Archives Divulge Secrets
    Not mentioned in those links is the warm welcome that Britain gave to the military overthrow of the democratically-elected socialist government of Salvador Allende, which led to the deaths, disappearance and torture of thousands of innocent civilians, under 17 years of brutal dictatorship.
    These are the related documents released this week that I've found so far, though I'm still digging:

    The Foreign and Commonwealth Office have reportedly held back all documents relating to the day of the coup, however. I assume they are waiting until Kissinger and other US parties who supported and assisted the coup die of old age, before these are released.

    The overthrow of President Allende in Chile presented the Foreign Office with a refugee problem. "The usual fellow-travelling civil rights organisations will do their best to confuse the distinction [between] respected democratic socialists and undesirables further to the left," a department minute noted. "In view of the growth of terrorism in this country we really cannot knowingly risk admitting terrorists as refugees."

    So calling inconvenient refugees "terrorists" is nothing new, e.g. abandoning thousands on the Chilean left to be murdered by the Pinochet regime, and slamming your doors to legitimate asylum seekers fleeing from "valued trading partners".

  11. UK & US role in Chilean coup by jdfox · · Score: 2, Interesting · on UK National Archives Divulge Secrets
    Not mentioned in those links is the warm welcome that Britain gave to the military overthrow of the democratically-elected socialist government of Salvador Allende, which led to the deaths, disappearance and torture of thousands of innocent civilians, under 17 years of brutal dictatorship.
    These are the related documents released this week that I've found so far, though I'm still digging:

    The Foreign and Commonwealth Office have reportedly held back all documents relating to the day of the coup, however. I assume they are waiting until Kissinger and other US parties who supported and assisted the coup die of old age, before these are released.

    The overthrow of President Allende in Chile presented the Foreign Office with a refugee problem. "The usual fellow-travelling civil rights organisations will do their best to confuse the distinction [between] respected democratic socialists and undesirables further to the left," a department minute noted. "In view of the growth of terrorism in this country we really cannot knowingly risk admitting terrorists as refugees."

    So calling inconvenient refugees "terrorists" is nothing new, e.g. abandoning thousands on the Chilean left to be murdered by the Pinochet regime, and slamming your doors to legitimate asylum seekers fleeing from "valued trading partners".

  12. UK & US role in Chilean coup by jdfox · · Score: 2, Interesting · on UK National Archives Divulge Secrets
    Not mentioned in those links is the warm welcome that Britain gave to the military overthrow of the democratically-elected socialist government of Salvador Allende, which led to the deaths, disappearance and torture of thousands of innocent civilians, under 17 years of brutal dictatorship.
    These are the related documents released this week that I've found so far, though I'm still digging:

    The Foreign and Commonwealth Office have reportedly held back all documents relating to the day of the coup, however. I assume they are waiting until Kissinger and other US parties who supported and assisted the coup die of old age, before these are released.

    The overthrow of President Allende in Chile presented the Foreign Office with a refugee problem. "The usual fellow-travelling civil rights organisations will do their best to confuse the distinction [between] respected democratic socialists and undesirables further to the left," a department minute noted. "In view of the growth of terrorism in this country we really cannot knowingly risk admitting terrorists as refugees."

    So calling inconvenient refugees "terrorists" is nothing new, e.g. abandoning thousands on the Chilean left to be murdered by the Pinochet regime, and slamming your doors to legitimate asylum seekers fleeing from "valued trading partners".

  13. Re:Domesday by NickFitz · · Score: 1 · on Umberto Eco on Paper vs. Electronic Memory
    There is now a project to try and resurrect the domesday project...

    ... and it has succeeded. Visitors to the National Archives at Kew can use a new PC-based interface to browse the original data from 1986.

    Adrian's first goal was to get the BBC Master computer working reliably again.

    Hmm... I'll have to dig out my BBC Model B and see if it still works reliably. Could have saved them a bit of trouble ;-)

    (FWIW, it was covered here about a year ago.)

  14. Not going to help you but... by Bazzargh · · Score: 1 · on Data Migration Between CMS Repositories?

    ...its interesting in this context. The UK Government's Public Records Office issued a standard a while back that all their records management systems are supposed to adhere to (RMS systems sit on the same spectrum as document- and content- management systems). Every supplier has to get their product certified against this spec. The main thing the spec mandates is an import and export format for all the document metadata.

    It takes someone as big as a government to demand "no lock in please, we're british" to get things like this sorted out. Hopefully the JCR API will sort out the content management space as well. All a bit too late for you.

  15. Re:Of course not. [drifting slightly off topic] by Keith_Beef · · Score: 2 · on Amnesty Calls Shenannigans on MS, Sun, Cisco

    When you mention the blacks, I think you mean just plain racist.

    I don't know much about the internment of Japanese in the USA during WWII, but I imagine it was similar to internment of Germans, Austrians and other "aliens" in the UK at the time. This was justified as being a precaution against fifth columnists.

    However, I don't think there is much similarity in the conditions suffered by the Jews in Belsen, and the Germans in the UK.

    Unfortunate episodes like the sinking of the SS Arandora Star, carrying 800 inernees, by a erman U-Boat, led to the government abandoning the idea of deporting such prisoners to British Empire dominions.

    Most internees had been released by the end of 1942. Of those that remained, many were repatriated from 1943 onwards. It was not, however, until late 1945 that the last internees were finally released.
    Source:Public Records Office
  16. Re:Qinteq by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0 · on Terahertz Imaging:Another Way to See Through Walls
    And QinetiQ are the "professional" team who have still failed to get the UK 1901 Census online, 6 months after it was launched in a blaze of publicity.

    Not quite the James Bond vision.

  17. bletchley park and first computer by johnjones · · Score: 2 · on The Computer and the Skateboard

    really it all started with a liitle game called guess what the germans are saying

    fly over find out what the weather is then PROGRAM your computer to crack the code

    now thats a computer
    http://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/
    bad website but donate there

    picture

    http://www.retrobeep.com

    have fun but really dont forget where it all came from

    regards

    john jones

  18. Re:a measly 2% by mccalli · · Score: 5, Funny · on Open Source Developers Mostly Pros, Not Weenies
    I have yet to meet a woman who I would consider a hardcore hacker.

    It's been my luck to know a couple. However, one of the funniest things I remember was a rather patronising social experiment, done in a psychology course for the Open University. I caught this programme on television - I wasn't part of the course. It's all quite a few years ago now as well - maybe 90/91? Don't know for sure.

    The experiment gave an internet connection, via modem, to three women - one in her early twenties and a member of the women's darts team, one a working professional single mother in her mid-forties, and the final one looked like everybody's favourite grandmother.

    The woman in her twenties discovered internet chat rooms (yes, plenty were there then. Anyone remember Cheeseplant's House?). The woman in her forties spent time with her child doing educational things. Next came the grandmother.

    Of course, everyone expected her to have used the machine as a tea-cosy or something, so it came as rather a shock to find she had been participating in various freeware projects, running technical simulators and tweaking her connection parameters to get better throughput. You could feel the researcher slipping into shock...

    Completely without knowing, the team had accidently picked one of the original Colossus team members, and she was putting her sudden luck to good use...

    Cheers,
    Ian