It wasn't about 'taxes' per se, it was about competitive advantage from the Irish Government available to one company and not others from the EU, equivalent to 'State Aid'. Just so happens that tax needs paying to make up for it.
Conceded! Would they like a Referendum too? But seriously, our best collaborations were via CEN/Cenelec, which was actually fun, and the EU helped a little bit with the expenses, but it was an EEA effort - and long may it continue thus (unless ISO with US Secretariats gets there first!)
There was an attempt to write a 'Constitution', which the UK vetoed as an attack on natonal Sovereignty generally. But most of the words in the big draft were then imported into the Lisbon Treaty with its 'ever-closer union' ambition on page 1. (I know because in the job I had then I had to compare the two texts word-for-word, then get on Eurostar). This time, Cameron got the promise of a derogation on the 'Union' bit, but it wasn't enough to persuade us Brits who only had ever voted for a 'Single Market' (and didn't get even that, at least in my sector). Today we're celebrating with (French) champagne.
Same experience, except that the 'upgrade' to Win10 silently discards a random selection of (mostly old) programs you might well be using daily. And they almost all work if you can reinstall them. What's going on?
I wrote COBOL direct to punched cards. You agreed the flowchart with the client, and provided you were disciplined about data-names (and modules), the whole thing was self-documenting in plain English. Keep the big flowchart, and a print of the finally-debugged source, and what could possibly go wrong? Spent a whole career looking for an object-language that was as tidy.
I keep a dozen cousins' kit clean via TeamViewer. It takes me ten minutes each a month to sort out the messes they've made, on XPpos, 7 and 8. Of course I locked out the Win10 nags, but having tried 10 myself, and found I could make it look just like XP and kill telemetry, I no longer recommend against 'upgrade' to 10. Seems big daddy Microsoft will keep them all a bit tidier with 10, whether they like it or not, and what do I care? Sure, Mint is on their HDDs as dual-boot, but they won't use it because it doesn't run their heap of ancient programs (tell me about OED full-install?)
At my place of work, we had n+1 programmers (the '1' being female, Carys where are you?) and 3 x n punchgirls in another room. Too dangerous for chaps to enter there, but the queenbee knew how to plug up the hitherto-vital tabulators. So the COBOL compilers soon ended her reign, poor Dear, but I tell you... those were Good Times.
In distant days, when compiling 80-column self-punched card programs on an ICL1901 with tape drives (for defence-sensitive applications of which I cannot even now speak), the most reliable man in our team was also the thickest. After him came the (only) girl, who was determined. Then a 'recovering' junkie who was very good, whenever awake. They were lovely people, and the cheerful heart of the team. That's all, from history.
Agree - keep all the gigabytes you like, nobody will ever browse them (and they'll be unbrowsable by the Standards 50 years hence). Now and then, or after family etc occasions, curate an 'album' of say 50 printed pages. Plenty of services to bind them nicely, much cheaper than hardware. In 100 years, that's all anyone will remember of you. Just possibly by then an AI system will have your virtual ghost communicating with questioners, but don't bank on it - they might not ask.
So - when the pretty bubbles in my bath go down the plughole, is there some 'information' in my cesspit that tells me how they were configured? What's 'entropy' anyway?
Exactly what I did, after a lifetime of ever-unfinished international legal diplomacy. Except - I gave a copy of the DVD to the boss's secretary, and a copy to another secretary. Bosses would never bother to look, but good secretaries would compete to find answers.
Not forgetting Volapuk - a gift from God? Or Interlingua? First, research why other efforts have failed. Second, note that text-speak and pidgin are getting closer all the time.
When I die there will be a huge pile of assorted data that is specific to me - ancestry, DNA, interests, writing style, books bought, etc etc. Next-generation associative databases should be able to trawl that in such a way that my grandchildren can still ask me questions - even if only as a 'party game'. Main concern is that someone will patent the all-too-'obvious' processes, so that you need an annual paid license to secure immortality.
Any anthropologists around? IANaA, but my theory is that in cultures where testosterone-driven men (like us?) are not allowed to socialise nicely with girls of their own standard, and are shamed into avoiding masturbation or same-sex fun, there will be outbursts of plain primitive sexual aggression. India is hardly worst, if you consider what happens routinely in some Islamic countries.
East of the Atlantic, where people know what a Yahoo is (or was), the brand could never have been taken seriously. For those of us who don't already know, Swift described a yahoo as being filthy with unpleasant habits. At least they didn't name it for the absent millionaire boyfriend of Liz Hurley, a certain Bing.
A different religion would be more suitable. Find one with preprogramed suicidal zombies, trained from earliest days to reproduce one unchangeable set of precepts (OK, call it a User Guide). Any ideas?
Remind us how much they had to write off after they'd bought EDS, whose star was already on the wane (because customers had sussed the business model). Utterly predictable.
The Ayatollah's right. You can't sustain irrationality, autocracy and extremism against a tide of information and entertainment shared worldwide and without regard to gender. That's probably what he wants to do, so his policy is wise. But it won't last, even if things have to get (very) much worse before they get better.
Not true. The Wimmin in my family consult WP daily, for likely 'facts'. But they can't post because their lifegiving-lifestyle would be 'original research', and what they want is exchange of experience (and anecdote). Things like 'MumsNet' do that well; it's not a competition.
Most employees probably have a computer at home. MS dominance ensures it will be running Windows. Nobody non-tech wants to change their mindset every day they go to work. Surprised that Win8 didn't make Linux seem easy, though.
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It wasn't about 'taxes' per se, it was about competitive advantage from the Irish Government available to one company and not others from the EU, equivalent to 'State Aid'. Just so happens that tax needs paying to make up for it.
How pure does the feedwater have to be to avoid poisoning the catalyst or the membrane? Maybe subtract the energy required to purify it.
Conceded! Would they like a Referendum too? But seriously, our best collaborations were via CEN/Cenelec, which was actually fun, and the EU helped a little bit with the expenses, but it was an EEA effort - and long may it continue thus (unless ISO with US Secretariats gets there first!)
There was an attempt to write a 'Constitution', which the UK vetoed as an attack on natonal Sovereignty generally. But most of the words in the big draft were then imported into the Lisbon Treaty with its 'ever-closer union' ambition on page 1. (I know because in the job I had then I had to compare the two texts word-for-word, then get on Eurostar). This time, Cameron got the promise of a derogation on the 'Union' bit, but it wasn't enough to persuade us Brits who only had ever voted for a 'Single Market' (and didn't get even that, at least in my sector). Today we're celebrating with (French) champagne.
Same experience, except that the 'upgrade' to Win10 silently discards a random selection of (mostly old) programs you might well be using daily. And they almost all work if you can reinstall them. What's going on?
I wrote COBOL direct to punched cards. You agreed the flowchart with the client, and provided you were disciplined about data-names (and modules), the whole thing was self-documenting in plain English. Keep the big flowchart, and a print of the finally-debugged source, and what could possibly go wrong? Spent a whole career looking for an object-language that was as tidy.
I keep a dozen cousins' kit clean via TeamViewer. It takes me ten minutes each a month to sort out the messes they've made, on XPpos, 7 and 8. Of course I locked out the Win10 nags, but having tried 10 myself, and found I could make it look just like XP and kill telemetry, I no longer recommend against 'upgrade' to 10. Seems big daddy Microsoft will keep them all a bit tidier with 10, whether they like it or not, and what do I care? Sure, Mint is on their HDDs as dual-boot, but they won't use it because it doesn't run their heap of ancient programs (tell me about OED full-install?)
Aren't the North Koreans merely doing explicitly what most countries partly-succeed in doing by social subterfuge?
At my place of work, we had n+1 programmers (the '1' being female, Carys where are you?) and 3 x n punchgirls in another room. Too dangerous for chaps to enter there, but the queenbee knew how to plug up the hitherto-vital tabulators. So the COBOL compilers soon ended her reign, poor Dear, but I tell you... those were Good Times.
In distant days, when compiling 80-column self-punched card programs on an ICL1901 with tape drives (for defence-sensitive applications of which I cannot even now speak), the most reliable man in our team was also the thickest. After him came the (only) girl, who was determined. Then a 'recovering' junkie who was very good, whenever awake. They were lovely people, and the cheerful heart of the team. That's all, from history.
Surely if all 'size' was in there, it was as 'big' as it is. The metric was changing then, just as it is changing now.
Agree - keep all the gigabytes you like, nobody will ever browse them (and they'll be unbrowsable by the Standards 50 years hence). Now and then, or after family etc occasions, curate an 'album' of say 50 printed pages. Plenty of services to bind them nicely, much cheaper than hardware. In 100 years, that's all anyone will remember of you. Just possibly by then an AI system will have your virtual ghost communicating with questioners, but don't bank on it - they might not ask.
So - when the pretty bubbles in my bath go down the plughole, is there some 'information' in my cesspit that tells me how they were configured? What's 'entropy' anyway?
Exactly what I did, after a lifetime of ever-unfinished international legal diplomacy. Except - I gave a copy of the DVD to the boss's secretary, and a copy to another secretary. Bosses would never bother to look, but good secretaries would compete to find answers.
Not forgetting Volapuk - a gift from God? Or Interlingua? First, research why other efforts have failed. Second, note that text-speak and pidgin are getting closer all the time.
When I die there will be a huge pile of assorted data that is specific to me - ancestry, DNA, interests, writing style, books bought, etc etc. Next-generation associative databases should be able to trawl that in such a way that my grandchildren can still ask me questions - even if only as a 'party game'. Main concern is that someone will patent the all-too-'obvious' processes, so that you need an annual paid license to secure immortality.
Any anthropologists around? IANaA, but my theory is that in cultures where testosterone-driven men (like us?) are not allowed to socialise nicely with girls of their own standard, and are shamed into avoiding masturbation or same-sex fun, there will be outbursts of plain primitive sexual aggression. India is hardly worst, if you consider what happens routinely in some Islamic countries.
East of the Atlantic, where people know what a Yahoo is (or was), the brand could never have been taken seriously. For those of us who don't already know, Swift described a yahoo as being filthy with unpleasant habits. At least they didn't name it for the absent millionaire boyfriend of Liz Hurley, a certain Bing.
A different religion would be more suitable. Find one with preprogramed suicidal zombies, trained from earliest days to reproduce one unchangeable set of precepts (OK, call it a User Guide). Any ideas?
Remind us how much they had to write off after they'd bought EDS, whose star was already on the wane (because customers had sussed the business model). Utterly predictable.
The Ayatollah's right. You can't sustain irrationality, autocracy and extremism against a tide of information and entertainment shared worldwide and without regard to gender. That's probably what he wants to do, so his policy is wise. But it won't last, even if things have to get (very) much worse before they get better.
Not true. The Wimmin in my family consult WP daily, for likely 'facts'. But they can't post because their lifegiving-lifestyle would be 'original research', and what they want is exchange of experience (and anecdote). Things like 'MumsNet' do that well; it's not a competition.
Most employees probably have a computer at home. MS dominance ensures it will be running Windows. Nobody non-tech wants to change their mindset every day they go to work. Surprised that Win8 didn't make Linux seem easy, though.
So call it 'Bing Bong'. That should fix its reputation.
Imam - it already works well in the most desolate parts of the world, and has for hundreds of years.