Seen in the News

[Stanley]

Ken, what we are watching in the US is a perfect example of what happens when the ruling classes get completely out of touch with the voters. There isn't some sort of gene that produces rednecks and uber-patriots, it's a combination of poor education, erratic religion and manipulation by media. This is all under the control of the politicians and what happened here was that it suited the Republicans to allow the populist faction to move forwards, you see it in the Tea Party movement, remember Sarah Palin? Come Trump and he seized the reins culminating in the invasion of the Capitol. This was the logical outcome of what had gone before and now the Republicans have the job of reversing the process, if that's possible. There will be a lot of dodgy people in the US who can see a power vacuum on the Right. Question is, who or what fills it. It is not a dead certainty it will be the GOP!

[Tizer]

Reading the Obama book gives a better understanding of how, when and where the far right hatred was crystallising out in the US over 10 years ago. Remember Sarah Palin and the tea Party? Social media had hardly got started but once it did the flood gates opened.

I've just written about the government saying it will move to regulate Klarna and I wondered why it took them so long. Well, this is yet another `why so long' moment. I know there's a pandemic on but these issues should have been resolved long before the pandemic started...
`Ministers plan extra cash to remove unsafe cladding' LINK

[PanBiker]

`Ministers plan extra cash to remove unsafe cladding'

Regarding dragging their feet on the cladding issue. I wonder how many folk come election time will remember that the government have had to be dragged and forced into making this decision rather than just the monetary aspect of it. It's a bloody disgrace to say the least, some folk have committed suicide over the worry.

[Stanley]

Quite right Ian. Bad oversight allowed the obvious shenanigans in specifying cladding and certifying it. We know that already. Since then the shoddy practices have continued, one hour fire resistant doors that fail in twenty minutes?
A government standing back hoping that private money will solve the problem, i.e. make the lease holders pay. Disgraceful behaviour but par for the course in government,.
How many times have we heard 'cost is no object' and then nothing.....
You're right about another thing Ian, the short memory of the majority of the voters coupled with the wilful ignorance of others, the vox pop blue rinses telling us what a marvellous man Johnson is.
Not to mention the whole murky business of how the fight against Covid has been handled and the nature of many contracts handed out with little or no scrutiny. Fortunes have been made.

[Tizer]

The cladding and similar problems are a result of what is effectively deregulation of industries - allowing them to regulate themselves. The people who made the materials and those who made them into products were allowed to do their own testing. It was a mess from the start. Same as the car manufacturers `gaming' the test systems. Industry hates regulation but is it's own enemy.

[Stanley]

Very true Peter and in turn all part of the movement in government that has been going on under all parties for at least forty years, the move to relinquish responsibility for so many aspects of life and society. We all saw what deregulation of the financial industry did from the 1960s onwards. The same principles led to responsibilities for social care and many other matters being devolved solely to the Local Councils, whose funding was then cut.
Perversely, where there was a profit to be made things like owning and maintaining army married quarters, procuring PEP and event Testing for Covid were outsourced to some very strange quarters. Even HMRC sold it's properties and leased them back. All cunning wheezes to get many expenditures off the nations current account and hide the fact that we were in financial decline. This is still happening and until we get a government with the courage to grasp so many nettles and improve the way we are managed as a society we shall not see any big improvements, just sticking plasters here and there on the weakest parts of the structure.
Worth remembering that taking responsibility and improving matters was the principle behind the Beveridge Report and the subsequent actions of the Labour government that gave us the NHS and the Welfare State. These are the areas that are being backed away from now under the cloak of 'giving people individual responsibility'.
Yes, I'm angry.
[Here's a statistic I saw yesterday that is part of the same change in the way we are governed. Research by the International Labour Organisation estimates that workers earnings during the pandemic have fallen by $3.7tn. Oxfam research shows that over the same period the increase in wealth of the top capital holders has been $3.9tn. Go figure....]

[Tizer]

One bright spot for us Brits...
`Brits snap up Australian wine that didn't go to China' LINK

And this is why it's not a good idea to stand on the edge of a cliff...
`White Cliffs of Dover: Collapsing cliff side caught on camera' LINK

[Stanley]

Good God Peter! Is this the end of Sovereign UK as we know it? Dissolving into the sea like a big sugar lump!?
[Good clip.....]

[Tizer]

In the long term, yes! All that chalk falling down eventually gets dispersed in the sea water and over time provides the calcium carbonate for sea creatures to build their shells. The chalk strata also contain hard flint nodules and these get rolled back and forth by the tides and rounded to form the smooth flint pebbles characteristic of the beaches below the chalk cliffs.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

I've posted this story here because it relates to much more than just computers - as we all know silicon chips are being used in many of the day to day stuff we use. It has some interesting background information about chips and chip makers. The chip crisis isn't `new news' but it's getting bigger and more complicated...
`How will 'chipageddon' affect you?' LINK

[Stanley]

I've mentioned before that as a lad I used to worry about the brown colour of the River Mersey at Stockport. It seemed to me that England was being dissolved and dropped in the Irish Sea!
Interesting article about micro processors. I didn't realise Taiwan and South Korea were so dominant in the field. What a complicated world we have built for ourselves.....

[Tripps]

The chip crisis isn't `new news' but it's getting bigger and more complicated...

I'm not a fan of much of the BBC, and it's hard to understand how they can do a piece on microchips and not mention ARM Holdings

Or maybe it's not.

[PanBiker]

I knew the first generation chips well as I trained to work at component level repairs on all the Archimedes RISC based machines.

[chinatyke]

Just noticed Ofcom has revoked CGTN licence to broadcast in the UK.

Article

CGTN statement

No matter what the British press say, I know where I'd rather be!

To which my wife said: China/England: Like elephant and monkey, do you think the elephant is bothered?
Followed by: "England is America's xiao didi" - (little dick)!

[Tizer]

I'm not a fan of much of the BBC, and it's hard to understand how they can do a piece on microchips and not mention ARM Holdings Or maybe it's not.

Sold to Japanese company Softbank in 2016 and now in discussions to be sold by them to US company Nvidia.

[Stanley]

China, tell your wife that I completely understand why the says that and think there may be a lot of truth in it. Brexit certainly did nothing to disabuse us of the second one.

[Tizer]

I know I keep going on about how dams are becoming dangerous as the climate warms but here's a relatively small example and yet it's shocking. See the video on this Sky News web page and watch the effects in the narrow gauge - then imagine this on the much bigger scale, such the Yangste River or Yellow River. Whole cities would disappear....

`Northern India: At least 9 dead and 150 missing as glacier breaks and hits dam: A portion of a Himalyan glacier broke off causing a flood of water and debris to hit two hydroelectric projects in Uttarakhand.' Sky News

[Stanley]

You do right Peter to keep reminding us, it's not 'going on'. I thought of you when I saw the report yesterday. Only the other day I saw a report that the Three Gorges Dam had moves slightly on its foundations in parts but this was 'not seen as serious'. Really?
The power of water released like that is immense and yes, even a city would have no defence.

[Tizer]

If that dam collapses then Wuhan, Nanjing and Shanghai would be wiped off the map. Imagine how many millions would die.

Talking of China...We all can remember how Cameron and Osborne cuddled up to China and urged us all to make deals with that country and cooperate closely. Now many of those who followed the government advice are going to face prison for doing so...
`Hundreds of UK academics investigated over weapons links to China' The Times
`Almost 200 British academics are being investigated on suspicion of unwittingly helping the Chinese government build weapons of mass destruction, The Times can reveal. They are suspected of violating strict export laws intended to prevent intellectual property in highly sensitive subjects being handed to hostile states. The individuals could face a maximum of ten years in prison if found in breach of the Export Control Order 2008. A source told The Times that the government was preparing to send enforcement notices to up to 200 UK citizens working at more than a dozen British universities. The individuals are suspected of transferring world-leading research in advanced military technology such as aircraft, missile designs and cyberweapons to China..'.

[Stanley]

What a world we live in.... I listened to a Jewish lady saying yesterday that her reaction to borders closing because of the pandemic was made far worse because her parents and family were trapped by borders in the 1930s and many died as a result. in a way this is the same thing. Insecurity about travel and communications with other nations. One minute they are allies and the next, deadly enemies.

[Tizer]

Like my worries about collapsing dams I've long had concerns that one day a terrorist will achieve his mission by tipping one of those extremely toxic chemicals (Putin's favourites) into our reservoirs. But now I find they've got an even easier method - hack into the water company's IT system and make it over-dose the water with something dangerous...
`Hacker tries to poison water supply of Florida city' LINK

[Stanley]

Like you Peter, I have my fears like that. It goes back to the IRA, I could think of some easy and very affective strategies to bring a modern society to its knees. And yes, poisoning reservoir is one but no need for a masked man and a bucket, as you say, just hack into the control systems.
I listened to a fuller explanation of how the hack was detected, it was pure chance. An employee was doing routine checks on his screen and noticed one parameter being adjusted by a remote colleague as he thought. It was only when the inputs became obviously dangerous that he or she twigged what was happening and blocked the inputs. Pure chance! Well done whoever it was, he or she is in line for a bonus I reckon!

[Stanley]

The Governor of the BofE has announced that for the first time in modern history, Amsterdam traded more shares than London yesterday. I don't remember the Brexiteers telling us that this would be one of the results of leaving the EU.

[Tizer]

As usual the Brexiteers are claiming that those nasty folk across the Channel (sorry, the English Channel!) are plotting the downfall of our wonderful London-based financial services sector. They ought to look in the mirror.

[Stanley]

That won't work Peter. They can't see reflections in mirrors.

[Tizer]

It looks like the Preseli bluestones were already in use in Wales as a stone circle and then got taken and recycled at Stonehenge. Waste not, want not!
`Stonehenge: Did the stone circle originally stand in Wales?' LINK