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User: Richard_at_work

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Comments · 7,308

  1. Re:Good thing he wasn't a Nerd on Hitler's Stealth Fighter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I don't think Hitlers underestimation, if he even did, of Britain and Frances wish to fight for Poland was damaging at all - by the middle of 1940, Germany had caused France to capitulate and thrown the British army out of Europe. Had Germany won the Battle of Britain that year and not invaded the USSR, then in all probability Europe would still be in the hands of the Third Reich.

    Without Britain as a staging post, the US, Canada and Australia would have had no firm base to launch an invasion of Europe. With Britain out of the war, Hitler would have held North Africa as well, preventing the Allies from using that as an invasion staging post. Basically, the Allies would have lost any easy gateway into Europe, and with that went any hope of liberation.

  2. Re:Good thing he wasn't a Nerd on Hitler's Stealth Fighter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hitlers single, fatal mistake was taking on the Soviet Union without first ensuring that Britain and the rest of the Allies were out of the war for good. Had Hitler not committed to the Eastern Front, he could have easily have prevented an Allied invasion, and indeed have triumphed in North Africa.

    Hitlers basic failure was greed. He wanted the Soviet Union as well, when there was no possibility he would have won that war due to the sheer size of the USSR. He had no heavy strategic bombers, nothing to interfere with Soviet production facilities once they were moved further east, and that doomed him to lose.

  3. Re:Control surfaces? on Hitler's Stealth Fighter · · Score: 1

    You are probably thinking of the Northrop YB-35 and YB-49, which had huge stability issues and was eventually scrapped. Northrop eventually went on to use that knowledge to produce the B-2...

  4. Re:Dropbox on How Do You Sync & Manage Your Home Directories? · · Score: 1

    Its currently still in extended beta, and there are paid accounts available.

  5. Re:Surprise surprise on Siemens, Nokia Helped Provide Iran's Censoring Tech · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Precisely - this is just a case of 'who do we like today' verses 'who do we dislike today'. The western world was all for selling Iran complex military machines (F-14s with AIM-54 Phoenix missiles among other things) when the country was under the Shah dictatorship, to the extent that there was a huge panic when the Shah was deposed. Infact there still is a huge panic about those weapons, take a look at the extent the US went to to ensure the Iranian air force did not benefit from blackmarket spares stolen from museums when the US Navy retired their F-14s from active service.

  6. Re:That's a nice budget you got there on Univ. of Wisconsin's 30-Year-Old Payroll System Needs a $40 Million Fix · · Score: 1

    The workers have already subjected themselves to the union hierarchy, so its basically their problem already :) Why should the employer be the one to implement the complex pay structures unions demand? Reduce the workforce to a single invoice per period!

  7. Re:I know this isn't the point.... on Newspaper Crowdsources 700,000-Page Investigation of MP Expenses · · Score: 1

    What I do not get, is why the British don't just pay the MPs a fixed amount for the expense of maintaining an extra home. If they use less, they stuff it untaxed in their pocket. If they use more, they take it nondeductible from their pocket.

    That sounds suspiciously like .... a wage! The horror!

  8. Re:Power to the people! on Newspaper Crowdsources 700,000-Page Investigation of MP Expenses · · Score: 1

    The Guardian didn't make the comment about the duck house - that was the Telegraph, who managed to get hold of the complete claims database uncensored months ago. They also mentioned it was claimed for but the claim was rejected. That doesn't stop the claim being wrong.

  9. Re:That's a nice budget you got there on Univ. of Wisconsin's 30-Year-Old Payroll System Needs a $40 Million Fix · · Score: 1

    In all probability, a large portion of the 'laws' are rules laid down by the unions themselves.

  10. Re:That's a nice budget you got there on Univ. of Wisconsin's 30-Year-Old Payroll System Needs a $40 Million Fix · · Score: 1

    Then why not normalise the current situation as to how it actually is - the employees are actually employed by the union, who contracts them out to third party employers? Thats pretty much how it is anyway. Pay the union for the workforce, the union gets the task of handling the complexity of its workforces pay structure.

  11. Re:Well that's just fantastic on iPhone 3.0 Update Delivers Prodigious Patch Batch · · Score: 1

    I have a first generation iPod Touch as well, and I can state for a fact that the box says no such thing.

  12. Re:What's The problem? on Satellite Glitch Rekindles GPS Concerns · · Score: 1

    Inertial guidance takes over - and these days, with laser ring systems they are extremely accurate.

  13. Re:Coming soon for the Wii... on UK Tax Breaks For "Culturally British" Games · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Another thing worth noting is that the RFU (Rugby Football Union) were considering increasing the size of the glass used to hold beer at a Rugby match to two pints, so spectators didn't have to visit the bar as often during the match. Meanwhile, selling alcohol at any Football match in the UK is illegal. Nicely deliniates the two sports, doesn't it :)

  14. Re:What's The problem? on Satellite Glitch Rekindles GPS Concerns · · Score: 3, Interesting

    No, they are not exact replicas of the original constellation members, but they can be placed into a compatible mode to fit into the standard GPS constellation. What is happening in this story is simply that mode being callibrated. As more and more updated satellites are placed into orbit, the GPS system can be upgraded by turning on new features.

  15. Re:loss of ressources on Air Force Planning New Drone Fleet For Pakistan · · Score: 1

    Of course NK are developing missiles - the difference between 'satellite launcher' and 'missile' is in the naming.

    Oh, and that NK are under a UN restriction not to test missiles...

    But China are under no such restriction, there is no reason for them to hide any development - infact they have a very active ICBM program, alongside their space program.

    Why shouldn't China get to develop ICBMs?

  16. Re:loss of ressources on Air Force Planning New Drone Fleet For Pakistan · · Score: 1

    The problem with that line of thinking is that the Chinese government do not need to justify their military spending or development to anyone, so why would they hide it? They already have intercontinental capable missiles, which they are improving on regularly anyway.

  17. Re:$90 per year per pc? Really? on Windows 7 Licensing a "Disaster" For XP Shops · · Score: 1

    I have no idea what agreements you have seen, but if you purchase a Microsoft operating system on either Select or Open standard agreement (ie, any agreement that does not require negotiation, so any agreement a typical MS rep will sign you up to) then thats your full license right there, no mention of requiring an OEM install in none of the 4 separate agreements I have infront of me.

  18. Re:BT horrendously overcharges for bandwidth on UK Government Announces Broadband Tax · · Score: 1

    You are coming across as someone who is a BT shill, or you directly benefit from BT's position in the market and abusive business practices, or are someone fighting with their conscience for voting for Thatcher for years, or are just an idiot who uncritically parrots BT's lies.

    Ahh right, I disagree with your position so I am either paid by BT to do so, receive revenue from BTs actions, voted for Thatcher, or am just generally an idiot.

    It can't *possibly* be that I have an opinion that differs from your own, now can it? No, it can't, because that obviously isn't allowed. This seems to be a common theme on Slashdot these days - I'm not allowed to take a stance different from yours, because obviously anyone that does has something to benefit from it.

    Its people like you that are the idiots in todays world - you don't have to respect my opinion, but I would think it is just plain polite to respect the fact that I am allowed an opinion that differs from yours.

    Yes, BT bill down to relatively small slices of bandwidth - it depends on what product you took from them. And guess what, you can unbundle the exchange, install your own kit and take your central lines from Energis or another regional company. You are not stuck with BT in the slightest.

    It seems that you are making excuses for poor business planning and business decisions on the part of some ISPs.

  19. Re:Greedy corrupt control freak UK government on UK Government Announces Broadband Tax · · Score: 1

    Its not as if BT are short of money... "BT to freeze pay of 100,000 employees" ... while "Ian Livingston, the chief executive, stands to make more than £6 million in bonuses this year if performance targets are met. This is on top of his basic salary of £850,000." ... Its a corrupt arragant UK government giving millions more to an arragant corrupt boss treating his staff with contempt. http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/telecoms/article5890128.ece

    No, its not as if BT are short of money, but why should they suffer the cost of a non profitable market sector? You can already gain access to the last mile infrastructure, but the problem is no third party has done it for these outlying areas. So why should BT?

  20. Re:Pointless on UK Government Announces Broadband Tax · · Score: 1, Interesting

    They weren't granted ownership of anything, the government *sold* the infrastructure when they privitised British Telecom. Oh, and the government also paid Mercury Communications a not insignificant sum of money to put in a second national network during the 1980s - that network became Cable & Wireless, and thus Virgin Media. Tell me this - where is the requirement for Virgin Media to wholesale their lines?

    Plus, BTs mandate only extends to universal service for phone systems and 14.4Kbit/sec capable lines. Stop moving the goal posts.

  21. Re:BT horrendously overcharges for bandwidth on UK Government Announces Broadband Tax · · Score: 0

    Also, in addition to my other post, BT charge based on Megabits per second and Kilobits per second, not bits transferred. If you buy a line from BT Wholesale, you pay based on the capability of that line and not actual transfer. The current monthly wholesale costs are £122.64 per Megabit/second and £0.2665 per Kilobit/second depending on the product taken.

  22. Re:BT horrendously overcharges for bandwidth on UK Government Announces Broadband Tax · · Score: 3, Funny

    BT does not horrendously overcharge for bandwidth, the rates they can charge to other competitors is heavily regulated by OFCOM in the UK. If ISPs are not charging what it actually costs to provide the service, then the problem is the ISP and not BT nor the user.

  23. Re:Interesting scheme... on UK Government Announces Broadband Tax · · Score: 3, Informative

    They're giving the money to BT (DSL) and Virgin (cable). BT is a private for-profit company and as such will limit what it will allow competition to do and set the prices higher than a public network.

    BT is tightly controlled on what it can and cannot do with regard to its infrastructure and allowing other companies to have access to it - there are fairly low upper limits to the pricing structure that BT can use to wholesale its lines, and there is always the option of Local Loop Unbundling.

    The problem is, it always ends up with the profitable areas being cherry picked by providers, and the outlying areas being left in the cold. In these situations you have two options - subsidise BT to provide a loss making line, or have the government form a public entity to provide connectivity using wholesale or LLU lines.

  24. Re:Pointless on UK Government Announces Broadband Tax · · Score: 3, Insightful

    BT is restricted in how much it can wholesale ADSL lines for - and the companies taking advantage of LLU (Local Loop Unbundling) at the exchange seem to have cherry picked all the good, profitable sites (large towns, cities and the like) and left the outlying areas well alone.

    So I don't think its altogether fair to round on BT for this - the option for other companies to freely compete in these areas has been around for several years, and it has failed. So why should BT be forced to supply ADSL to outlying areas in a lossmaking fashion when no one else will?

  25. Re:$90 per year per pc? Really? on Windows 7 Licensing a "Disaster" For XP Shops · · Score: 1

    Don't know where you buy your corporate desktops, but we get ours from HP and Dell, and we get them bare. We are only a small to medium business, with 150 employees, and we buy 3 - 5 desktops a month on average, but we have no problems buying desktops without an OS and using volume licensed installs on them.