Normal service is restored, well, what passes for normal service! And NO, I did not enjoy a long lay in this morning! It was all the fault of that Bill Gates because Microsoft decided they wanted to, er, up-date my computer. Fair enough - but it took all bloody morning! Do get a grip, Gates!
Dammit! Hitchens keeps telling uncomfortable truths: Today he shines a light on the, er, 'lady', Mary Lou McDonald, who (allegedly) leads the Sinn Fein party which to most people's horror and disgust did exceptionally well in the recent Irish elections. Lest we be fooled - again! - he reminds of some of her history:
In August 2003, Ms McDonald stood willingly beside the grisly apostle of violence and convicted IRA bomber Brian Keenan. But that wasn't all. Both were there to 'pay respect' at the statue of one of the nastiest people who ever lived.
The memorial to Sean Russell in Dublin's Fairview Park is, as far as I know, the only monument to a Nazi collaborator still standing in democratic Europe.
Russell, the IRA's Chief of Staff in 1939, travelled on the eve of the Second World War to Nazi Germany to offer his services to Hitler. They gave him the use of a villa in Berlin, and provided him with a car and chauffeur.
What can one say except 'pass the sick-bag'! In the meantime, of course, there is a good chance that Sinn Fein, a 'party' run by and for murderous gangsters will form part of the government of an EU country.
It's decision time, 'DomBo': That's the big difference between 'wannabe' political leaders and those actually up to their elbows (if not higher!) in political leadership. The ever-stern Jeremy Warner in The Telegraph puts the difficulty this way:
Is this a tax-cutting or big-spending administration? Is it economic competitiveness that most exercises the prime minister as we head towards the challenges of Brexit – in which case he would slash taxes to attract investment and talent – or is it “levelling up” the regions, which requires big spending on education, training, the underprivileged and the agglomeration of uneconomic towns and cities into more viable wholes.
Gotta choose, 'DomBo', but please don't choose both!
The death of the BBC is about to be announced - drinks on me! Not that part of me is not sad. Since wartime childhood, the BBC has been part of my life. It is only in recent years that gradually I have noticed the changes. It is no longer fair and balanced, or even truthful but has gradually morphed into a 'woke', Leftist, Greenie broadcaster for the purposes of pumping out it's own 'agitprop'. The fact that I am forced by law to pay for this garbage plus the 'yuuuuuuuge' salaries of the smug, 'Leftie' broadcasters is making me feel ill, so the quicker 'DomBo' pull the trigger, the better!
Oh my 'Gaard', not George Washington! Is no-one safe from those prying historians? Let me begin by confessing my almost total ignorance of George Washington. As far as I am concerned he was a damned traitor who took arms against His Majesty and, compounding his treachery, he won, dammit! Anyway, according to The Mail, he really was a bit of a rotter who ill-treated his slaves, stole their teeth for his own use and used every dodge in the book to avoid setting them free! Finally:
Perhaps the most hard-hitting revelation in the disproved myths about Washington is that his famous 'I cannot tell a lie' line to his father when felling the family's cherry tree is completely fictitious.
The tale was made up by Mason Locke Weems, a broke itinerant parson and bookseller, for the 19th century for the book 'The Life of Washington'.
Shockin', shockin'! I'm sure today's American politicians would not stoop to such falsehood!
And talking of America: Can anyone tell me who Michael Bloomberg is? I gather that he is eye-wateringly wealthy and is intent on buying the Democrat party! Is this "A Good Thing" or "A Bad Thing"?
Keep your eyes on Germany! I keep reading bits and pieces about the state of the State of Germany. Matters are in a state of flux as 'Mutti' Merkel prepares to hang up her handbag and not all of them sound too good!
No more Rumbles
When you read the "updates being installed, this could take some time" disclaimer on your screen-believe it.
Posted by: Whitewall | Sunday, 16 February 2020 at 13:42
I spent the last two days updating my various computers. Three updates wouldn't work automatically and I had to use the Microsoft Update Database and other update resources to do them manually. MS needs real competition, and I don't mean Apple's overpriced, Big Brother, crap OS. Linux's annoying, 1990's style system is starting to look good.
Has it crossed your mind, Old Boy, that the BBC hasn't been moving left, but that you've been moving right?
Posted by: Bob | Sunday, 16 February 2020 at 16:07
Oh, I do believe it, Whiters, I do!
"I had to use the Microsoft Update Database and other update resources to do them manually." Well done, Bob, I wouldn't even know how to start up-dating my computer, switching 'on' and 'off' is the limit of my ca[abilities. My fall back position, of course, is ring 'SoD'!
Posted by: David Duff | Sunday, 16 February 2020 at 16:21
I was wondering if SoD would weigh in about MS, David. I know he deals mostly with servers, but he should know something about all MS's incompetence of late.
Posted by: Bob | Sunday, 16 February 2020 at 19:46
Buy the Democrat party? It sold out to the Left years ago. Now it can't find a figure to sell America what they have to offer. So they are flirting with an oligarch as Trojan Horse.
Posted by: Whitewall | Sunday, 16 February 2020 at 22:20
In Washington's lifetime, manumission of a slave was required, by law, to be accompanied by a provision for that slave's livlihood. So, most people did not free their slaves. Washington was a very successful businessman, who could afford to arrange for manumission of half his slaves on his death, and the other half on Martha's death, which was exactly what he did.
A traitor? Well, since governments are established by humans to protect our natural rights, and one of those rights is to change or abolish a government that is not doing its job, it would seem that it was another George, on the other side of the Atlantic, who failed to keep the terms of the contract. Treason? As our beloved President is famous for saying "You're fired"!This was something of a surprise to that George, but, well, it was past time he learned.
Posted by: Michael F Adams | Monday, 17 February 2020 at 07:34
How come Mary Lou McDonald gets a right royal thrashing, yet your new darling Claire Fox, IRA supporter, defender of Brit child murderers, and former Revolutionary Communist party leader, gets fawning adulation latest incarnation of destructive nationalist views? Shoorely shome mishtake?
Ref Microsoft, Satya has made a very wise decision. Trying to keep a monopoly honest is like pushing water up hill, and so Windows will face some competition later this year from a very unusual place: internally at Microsoft. The next big thing from Microsoft will be an Android pone.
I'll repeat that in case you thought you were hallucinating: the next big thing from Microsoft will be an Android phone ...
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2020/1/23/21078289/microsoft-surface-duo-android-emulator-video-demo-apps-dual-screen
Another glorious tool from the age of Thatcherism: the Internal Market, rears its beautiful head again. Now the Windows team of lazy, useless, fkwits will need to lift their game lest the entire Surface range (Microsoft's devices: laptops, tablets, and the like) is offered up with Android as a choice and snapped up by customers.
As another example I discovered yesterday from a friend who works there why Specsavers is such a rip-roaring success compared to Vision Express. SpecSavers operational model is one of franchise for the shop fronts, and open competition for the head office services. The shops can choose to take or leave the head office services, like payroll, HR, marketing, etc. and choose third party offerings. This keeps the business services from the head office honest. And the shops live or die by their own performance and aren't preserved in low productivity and poor service aspic by a top down, authoritarian, power hierarchy, as is the case with crappy Vision Express.
So a non-linear model of Godelesque inspiration from the Thatcher era rides again.
A glimmer of light in a dark age.
SoD
Posted by: Loz | Monday, 17 February 2020 at 07:55
MS has a pretty good chance of screwing up an already screwed up OS. Android also updates when it damn well feels like it, sometimes making confusing changes. It's become somewhat better lately, but that doesn't mean it will stay that way. MS probably just wants in on the tracking capabilities, which are scandalous.
I have a Ford car with MS passenger compartment software. I avoided the touchscreen model because of wide complaints it was slow and glitchy. Unfortunately, there are problems even without it, especially in the stereo controls. It seems like MS couldn't make deadline and just stopped, leaving common features missing. Ford fired MS the next model year.
MS is too big, too slow, and too used to fixing things later. It releases updates that poison its own products, like Surface computers. AT&T should be a lesson, but MS can't seem to learn.
Posted by: Bob | Monday, 17 February 2020 at 16:43
Bob
Right you are.
The problem with Windows is what makes it useful. A mouse and later touch screen set up multiplies the number code lines needed to do anything, which raises the possibly of an error by an even larger factor. Changes and improvements just increase the problem.
Posted by: Hank | Monday, 17 February 2020 at 17:50
Hank
I liked Commodore computers before they were killed off by IBM's boring business machines. It was hard not to smirk at people flipping internal switches while trying to get their Microsoft mouse to work. You can't stop progress even when it's not.
Posted by: Bob | Monday, 17 February 2020 at 19:26
It's valid criticism for part of Microsoft, Bob. I wail and gnash teeth on a daily basis. But, like the old Spinal Tap one liner says, "Money talks and bullshit walks" ...
https://images.app.goo.gl/XeHbc3FFwYGycQVu8
SoD
Posted by: Loz | Monday, 17 February 2020 at 23:16
And sometimes bullshit makes a ton of loot.
Posted by: Bob | Tuesday, 18 February 2020 at 01:54
Where did I go wrong then?
SoD
Posted by: Loz | Tuesday, 18 February 2020 at 05:58
It's not that you're wrong, SoD, it's just that, contrary to the idea that markets are like gods, business pressures often warp outcomes. There was a point where there were personal computer and workstation architectures better than IBM's, but they were driven out of the market because business writ large was familiar with IBM and didn't value a multitasking environment, GUIs, or advanced graphics or sound capabilities. And no one had even begun to think about internet security.
Also, Microsoft became the OS of choice by dumb luck:
https://www.techopedia.com/2/31154/software/cpm-the-story-of-the-os-that-almost-succeeded-over-windows
My technical career grew up with all that, and when I have to spend two days of my time working around Microsoft's lazy fkups, it does not make me happy.
Posted by: Bob | Tuesday, 18 February 2020 at 14:36
Office 365 and Azure though, eh? Satya added real invention and strategy to the business and that's why the share price has done what it's done.
Steve Ballmer missed the boat with all that and mobile in the lost decade of the noughties, clinging onto windows and office. But Satya has turned it around in the same time frame of the tens.
And if that Microsoft Duo re-ignites the mobile market it will be one of the greatest turn arounds in corporate history. Talk about stamina and never give up attitude. To soon to say on mobile, but one to watch.
SoD
Posted by: Loz | Tuesday, 18 February 2020 at 20:21