OT: Kellingley pit shuts and causes leftist dilemma

[charles]

No! the VAT stays in the UK. The profit tht Amazon make on the transaction goes to Luxembourg ..

[The Natural Philosopher]

Why not? A typical power station doesnt last that long anyway.

Nukes were designed for 40 years

Several myths there. De Gaulle built nukes because of the Arab oil crisis in 1973.

Germany never had as much nuclear power as the UK.

Neither controlled their own gas fields, We did.

13 years of Labour misrule coming home to roost?

[Graham C]

It usually doesn't take too long to get the basics of new software, but to become proficient in it is a very different thing.

Got the basics in Windows XP (from 98SE) in a couple of days. Felt comfortable with it after a couple of years.

Moved on to Win 7. Still struggling to feel I'm in command after 9 months.

Most people will tell you they can use Word and Excel. Judging by most of the projects I've had to handle over the years I can assure you they can't.

I've worked with many control systems (Siemens and Rockwell) in the past three decades and though most of them 'work', the code as been written without a knowledge of many fundamental principles that results in unwieldy and very inefficient code, (as mine was in the early days).

The issue I've had with many examples of 'Current Version' is the inordinate amount of time wasted on the phone reporting bugs and inconsistencies then waiting for fixes.

My favourite example with a very Well Known major American Company (WKC) was, (having spent several hours making a specific subroutine work):

Me: 'The manual telling me how Function XXX works is completely wrong' WKC: 'No it isn't' Me: 'I can assure you it is.' WKC: 'Hang on a sec - the manual IS correct, the problem is that the software implementation is different.' Me: 'So the manual states how it was meant to work - but it doesn't work in that way.' WKC: 'That's correct.' Me: 'Right - look at the manual - count the variables which need to be allocated - then read the stated memory requirements.' WKC: 'Oh dear it's wrong. So it seems that both the manual and the implementation are wrong.' Me: 'Sigh'

Bottom line was that we bought another system nine months later - the Function still didn't work as intended and the loose-leaf manual hadn't been updated.

[Martin]

OK they are obeying EU rules now. Statements used to say explicitly that VAT was paid to Luxembourg. Nowadays statements don't mention destination, but the VAT rate is correct for NL.

[Martin]

The standard reply from a no longer existing UK computer manufacturer was "it's a design feature"

A company wasted weeks helping Oracle to debug a problem and found that the patch was not included in the next release because of cost.

[soup]

How do you get he thinks "that the demise of the horse drawn transport was the result of globalisation" from that? When he clearly states "unless YOU think".

Taking completely the wrong meaning then using it against someone strikes me as fairly trollish behaviour.

[Tim Streater]

This statement has been true for the last 50 years. Like the one about fusion.

[michael adams]

The argument was as follows.

The OP suggested that the Killingley miners were the "victims" of globalisation; when as it happens, many people agree that they were.

Tim Streater is suggesting above, that the OP can only suggest that the Killingley miners were the "victims" of globalisation if he similarly agrees that that people who used to make a living off horses like blacksmiths, horse-whip makers, etc) were similarly "victims" of globalisation too.

Which is clearly nonsense, as nobody has ever suggested at any time that they were. The point that Tim Streater was trying to gloss over in using such a foolish analogy - is that the march of technology, such as the developemnent of the internal combustion with its possibly dire social consequences for some, is indeed impossible to resist. Unless you're a Shaker at least. Whereas the worst effects og globaliation can be resisted if a particular country or society chooses to adopt different priorities.

However because Tim Streaters', as with Turnips' entire thought processess are distorted by deep seated polical prejudices of various kinds, and because he's fundamentally opposed to any society or political system which would attempt to limit their exposure to globalisation in any way, he produced such a silly analogy.

And to be fair to Tim Streater, for all his limitations, he at least seems to have finally understood the point that I was making, >

Even if it seems, you yourself, sadly don't.

michael adams

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[The Natural Philosopher]

The oil age itself is only about 120 years. Coal about 200 tops.

If we are talking about it being a significant part of the energy mix.

[Indy Jess John]

Have you considered the possibility that in some countries the qualification standards might be lower, or it is easier to buy fake qualifications? Plus the fact that a UK pay rate when sent back to the home country is worth a small fortune.

Jim

[Tim Streater]

Exactly. Which means that the miners aren't victims either.

[Indy Jess John]

It is not difficult if you move forward leaving the earlier stuff behind.

Keeping a good working knowledge of a range is a lot more complicated. I help out people, and some have ancient kit running Windows 98, Windows ME, XP, or Vista, and some have the more current Win7, Win8 and Win8.1. One day one of them will click on the Windows 10 install offer and then call me to help them understand it.

When Microsoft change the GUI and the menu maps with each release, it

*is* difficult to remember something I haven't looked at for a while because I have been dealing with something that does essentially the same thing but via different configuration options. The popularity of Classic Shell suggests that other people also think the Microsoft is getting it wrong.

Jim

[Bill Wright]

Sure enough, you're right in that sense. But the point was that the true situation differs from the one portrayed by the interpretation you give. A self-employed person with no work is technically 'employed' but he produces nothing and his income is zero so he lives on child benefit, savings, etc. To all economic purposes he contributes to the problems of unemployment. Do you understand now?

Bill

[michael adams]

You're simply being obtuse.

Its quite possible to argue that these particular miners are victims of globalisation.

Whereas people who made a living from horses weren't.

They were victims of technological progress.

Globalisation requires international co-operation between governments. Its a matter of political will as much as anything else.

Technological change, the driver of all human progress, such as it is since since the days of the caveman doesn't.

It feeds off itself and is basically unstoppable.

michael adams

...

.

[Mike Lander]

Not when the coal is available from reliable suppliers like Australia.

Yes, but it can still be done now.

[Mike Lander]

The Fall isn't nearly unwatchable.

[michael adams]

Tim Streater isn't talking about people in general, but about people who don't invest in new startups. He's claiming that it's because they believe capitalism is bad.

Which is not only baloney as stated above but patent bollocks. The reason they don't invest in startups in the UK, assuming they don't, is because they know can they can get a better return for their money in the Far East. The Far East and the former Empire generally have been always been a traditional destination for UK capital investment.

Whereas in the US, after they'd succeeded in exterminating the native population they could capitalise on the land and raw materials which fell into in their laps with no need to invest abroad. Then years later their VC's could boast about how successful they were backing startups, on the back of billion dollar projects which had initially been bankrolled by the US Department of Defense (sic) and the hated pinko JFK in his quest to land a man on the Moon.

Pass the sick-bag.

michael adams

...

[Mike Lander]

That isn't an example of an incentive to keep the call centre on shore.

And it remains to be seen how long they continue to wear the much higher cost.

And the RBS is a special case given that it's 80% govt owned. It's not surprising that it keeps the call centre onshore while it is govt owned.

No one said it was impossible. What was being discussed was whether incentives could change that choice.

- think about

But you have a problem with what you have to pay them.

But can't do anything about their main cost, what you have to pay them wages wise.

The breaks can never do anything about the much higher wages bill.

Even say not taxing that operation doesn't fix the wages bill problem.

But isn't possible to fix the wages bill problem.

That's not call centres and Apple hasn't moved their manufacturing back onshore.

Not with operations like call centres whose entire costs are their wages bill.

No country has gone that route because it's political suicide. Even Hong Kong hasn't.

[Mike Lander]

Because there is no way to fix that. It isn't possible to have uniform VAT rates or uniform corporate tax environments either.

[Martin]

Not much good when the government is actively pursuing a policy of closing coal fired power stations too!

and finished in 10-15 years. Power is needed now. There were warnings from the power industry of potential problems if there is cold spell. If there is also a lack of wind, the underwater cables connected to a Danish wind farm supply won't be much good. Better stock up with candles.

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