Paul Brownjohn @Paulos_the_fog@qoto.org
Retired software engineer & woodworker.
Anglo-francophone.
Detest tories. Subscribe to green, leftish radical politics but not to any particular political party!.
Love the EU and all it stands for, moreover, I spent the last 10 years of my career working at an EU agency.
Enthusiastic photographer, especially wildlife and most especially butterflies.
Slightly knowledgeable gardener.
Atheist; loathe almost all religions and pity the people deluded enough to follow them. I make exceptions for Buddhism as it isn't really a religion in the strictest sense of the word as it doesn't postulate the existence of any god, and Jainism which is the epitome of peace.
For anyone who is interested, my header photo is of the most stupendous sunset I have ever seen. On the right is the waterfront of Vientiane, the capital of Laos, on the left is Thailand and in the middle, acting as the border between the two countries is the mighty Mekong river.
Joined Nov 2022
Speaking as one who left the UK for the continental EU way back in 1999, I can understand anyone who ups-sticks and moves permanently to another country. I have few regrets!
US bar staff are largely brain dead, I think - just going through the motions of being sentient!
A friend of mine who was in her 50s was asked for ID to prove she was over 21 in a US airport before they'd sell her a drink! At he time she ran a f***ing bar!
Aren't our governments wonderful - at a time when the NHS is crying out for more staff especially nursing staff, the government maintain in place policy that massively reduces healthcare recruitment into the UK from overseas!
Can we live without the US$ - yes of course we can although it will cause a very undesirable leap in the value of the Euro.
Who would cry if a US bank went out of business - in the case of the bank where I worked a large number of other banks as their main business was custody.
It is all very well saying that but I worked for a US bank in Europe - we 100% absolutely depended on a daily download of the company's mainframe data via a dedicated transatlantic pipe. If that feed slowed down or stopped so would the company's subsidiary!
Like rats deserting a sinking ship...
Not sure I see the relevance of that. Many countries, for example India and Ireland, have a president with zero executive power; a president who is a figurehead rather than a leader or in the case of trump, a dictator!
I was contacted by the local health authorities in Luxembourg after presumed exposure to a case of open tuberculosis on a long haul flight between Bangkok and Paris.
I was twice tested at a 6-month interval and both sets of tests came back negative.
The infected passenger was I believe roughly three meters from where I was seated as there was a woman having repeated coughing fits throughout the entire duration of the flight seated at about that distance from me.
Although the pathogen in the case of TB, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, is orders of magnitude larger than any virus, Covid is spread not by individual viruses floating in the atmosphere but by droplets of body fluids containing a viral load, so I guess the two are comparable.
Apparently, the infected passenger collapsed on arrival at the airport in Paris, was taken to hospital and she was diagnosed with active tuberculosis, hence the medical alert being raised with other passengers.
Initial screening with a Montoux test was violently positive, which scared the life out of me as multi-antibiotic resistant TB is becoming commoner and commoner. Thankfully, they then performed a much more sensitive and discerning test, Quantiferon Gold, that came back totally negative as did a second similar test six months later.
I asked the consultant supervising my case why the original Mantoux Test would have come back so violently positive when the more sensitive tests came back negative and he suggested that I must still have antibodies from my original BCG Vaccine given when I was a teenager about 50 years earlier which can trigger a reaction to a Mantoux test but will not impact the result of a Quantiferon Gold test. He went on to say although it's unusual to retain immunity from the BCG Vaccination for that period of time, it is not unheard of.
It's not one or the other that's the danger, it's both!
There is also the risk that trump orders US companies operating in Europe to hand over sensitive commercial data disadvantaging EU companies compared to their US competitors.
Europe needs to treat the US as a sworn enemy!
I am told that some of the hosting in Europe requires access to US servers just to operate!
I'm not even sure whether you are arguing for using US servers or against it - what I am saying is that in addition to the risk of a raving, demented POTUS like trump being tempted to cut Europe off from resources in the USA or obliging US companies to shut off access to their data centres in Europe, the risk is that Russia will sabotage the transatlantic data cables.
I see no valid answer to that in your comment!
These are the things I believe about our society:
That the earnings of a person on the statutory minimum income, after deductions, should be sufficient for a man or woman with children to rent suitable accommodation or to pay a mortgage on a modest property, to feed and clothe themselves and their offspring, to run a modest motor vehicle and to afford to take a holiday for themselves and for their children once a year for a couple of weeks.
That they should be provided with educational facilities such that their children have a chance of shining at school just as much as those of much greater means. It would be a great tragedy if another Einstein or Sir Isaac Newton were to be missed just because their parents could only afford to send them to an inadequate local comprehensive!
Likewise with university education, when I was young students received a grant to go to university and paid no fees. That is still the case in most civilized European countries but not in the UK nor indeed in the USA, quite the contrary! The utterly iniquitous system of student loans is already discouraging many gifted working-class students from going to university as they do not wish to be saddled with tens of thousands of pounds worth of student debt upon leaving university!
That all salaries benefits and pensions public or private should be indexed to the rate of inflation so that the poorest in society do not suffer unduly as the rich get richer. “A utopian dream” I hear the extreme right-wing bigots scream; not at all! Luxembourg does precisely, exactly that; all incomes are indexed to the rate of inflation and oddly enough the companies here don’t seem to suffer that badly from it as it is, by at least one metric GDP/Capita, One of the richest countries in the entire world!
That all residents of a civilized country should have the right to free or completely affordable health care. No one should ever be forced to go with out necessary care, medication or be bankrupted by the expense of healthcare that is an anathema in any decent society!
That adequate, comprehensive, free or heavily subsidized public transport should be available in all areas of the country so that residents are not obliged to use a private car or other vehicle to get from A to B or to work.
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
“Imagine waking up to the news that Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have been ordered by the U.S. government to cease providing their IT services to Europe. No more Azure, no more Google Cloud, no more AWS. The fallout would be immediate and catastrophic for countless European businesses, exposing a deep dependency that few truly acknowledge.”
https://adele.pages.casa/md/blog/what-if-us-cut-off-big-tech-from-europe.md
Yes, yes, YES I have been saying this for years!
The Europe's brain-dead reliance on resources in the USA is criminally stupid and utterly irresponsible!
In the event of the current conflict spreading from Ukraine to elsewhere in Europe, one of the first things Russia will do is to cut the transatlantic data cables linking Europe with the USA.
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
I am in need of a little advice from either #Scandinavian Users and/or #Photographers.
I'm off with my Wife to Tromsø at the end of the month for a week. I want to take my digital SLR with me (Canon EOS 500D.. a bit long in the tooth but it does me)
Two questions. I have neither a fancy heated lens nor massive battery pack (I do have a few spare batteries though)
If I'm going to be out in sub zero temperatures (hopefully photographing some Aurora!!) how can I stop (a) my lens freezing over and (b) the cold draining my batteries too quickly?
is this even going to be an issue? I have seen USB powered "Dew heaters"?? but they too need to be powered by a battery pack. I'm puzzled if they'd even be any use.
Please boost for reach.
All info greatly appreciated.
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
Why do UPS systems have such lousy power factor in their capacity?
For example, this unit I'm setting up is rated for 1500VA, but only 900 watts.
Most modern PC equipment has better than 0.9 power factor, so that's a lot of unavailable capacity there. And this seems standard across the industry.
I suspect the reason is that UPS designs haven't changed since the 90s when most PCs had lousy 0.5-0.7 power factor. But then the question becomes why this particular tech has been so stagnant?
Just opening their torpedo tube outer doors would be a polite warning to any American warships
Paul Brownjohn
boosted
Andrei Fedorov warned such a move would be considered an attack on Russia.
“For Russia, it’s a very important thing, because if there will be attack from US, it will be considered as attack on Russia, and it could lead to very critical or maybe even crisis situation in relations between Russia and US,” he told BBC Radio 4’s World At One programme
Russian submarines speeding towards the tanker would not fire on the US forces but could cause “technical difficulties” such as a “slight collision."
Interesting - apparently French customs intercepted a sex-doll from China made to resemble a child. They even went ahead and prosecuted the would be recipient who already had convictions for deviant sexual acts!
What does the hive mind think about this - is it reasonable for the state to prosecute someone just for having ordered such a sex-toy? Would it be better to let them have such a thing rather than going after pre-pubescent girls?
Personally, I think the idea of using such sex-toys is thoroughly distasteful but I'm not convinced that prosecution is the way forward.
Retired software engineer & woodworker.
Anglo-francophone.
Detest tories. Subscribe to green, leftish radical politics but not to any particular political party!.
Love the EU and all it stands for, moreover, I spent the last 10 years of my career working at an EU agency.
Enthusiastic photographer, especially wildlife and most especially butterflies.
Slightly knowledgeable gardener.
Atheist; loathe almost all religions and pity the people deluded enough to follow them. I make exceptions for Buddhism as it isn't really a religion in the strictest sense of the word as it doesn't postulate the existence of any god, and Jainism which is the epitome of peace.
For anyone who is interested, my header photo is of the most stupendous sunset I have ever seen. On the right is the waterfront of Vientiane, the capital of Laos, on the left is Thailand and in the middle, acting as the border between the two countries is the mighty Mekong river.
Joined Nov 2022
