Firstly, I do not know what you mean by a "war holiday". A USA thing? There is no "war holiday" in the UK, just ceremonies on 11.11, and also the nearest Sunday. I agree that a holiday does not sound appropriate.

As for the soldiers on the losing side, as I live in a country that was on the "winning" side in both WWs, I have no idea what they do in countries on the "losing" side. There is nothing to stop them remembering their dead too. AFAIK, cemeteries of German dead in France and Belgium are treated with respect.

I cannot see whether the right side won or not comes into it. That issue is not raised in the UK ceremonies; it entirely about remembering the dead. But generally it is assumed that the "right" side always wins in history, because they wrote the history books and whitewashed the dirt. Just look at the invective raised if anyone suggests Hitler was right (this is not Godwin, because this thread is about the WWs). Yet because Stalin "won" WWII, it was not until two generations later that it was recognised fully what a shite he was, probably worse than Hitler, but we will never fully know.

RTFA :- "This year, Alibaba has decided to take its 11.11 promotions worldwide " [My emphasis]

Fine, in China.

But in a large part of that "worldwide", 11.11 is the date for remembering the dead of Wars from WW1 onwards. And those wars were not just about the British Commonwealth - that is what the "World" means in "World War". Even the Chinese were involved, actually. Tsingtao

A really really bad choice of day for a consumer promotion. It certainly won't work where I live. In the UK, 11.11 is not a holiday (that would not be appropriate), but is among the top four or five days of the year that has a special significance.

How would the dealer know? Hire a car for a day and transfer it to that. Keep it running on a battery during the transfer.

Depends on the car. Some modern cars have a 12v ring main running round the car, and also a light signal cable, both visiting all devices. The signal cable tells the devices when to turn on and off. It saves running heavy cables alongside each other to the various rear lights, for example, and hence the total cost of wiring. So plenty of places to tap that 12v.

You move in different circles from me. I have never known anyone personally who used Excel. At work I am among engineers of the nuts-and-bolts type who use their corporate Microsoft desktops for nothing but email and reading/writing reports in Word. The managers spend their days creating PowerPoints. I suppose the finance department might use Excel but I don't know any of them personally. And we print things; at every meeting or training course I go to I am handed wads of it - copies of all the PowerPoint slides for a start (it is assumed that we will study it later LoL!).

The point is that I, and I suspect most consumers, do not need or use anything but the word processor of an office suite.

The sales figures you quote only goes to show that people buy into stuff like Office 365 because they do not understand what they actually need or what it actually consists of; it just sounds like a good idea and they have seen it advertised on TV. Microsoft advertising and FUD over the years have created the idea in many people's minds that IT won't work without MS software - ie a PC won't work without Windows, and they can't write anything without the latest version of Office installed on it.

I even have a 20 year-old copy of WordPerfect that I recently installed in a Win98 VM under Linux in order to retrieve some documents I wrote back then (I was writing a family history). Even that would fulfil all my word processing needs, but in fact I use LibreOffice these days.

I did not think this is about writing enterprise software. Where I work the system is so locked down that you could not write anything yourself anyway. Even before it was locked down, there was no way that IT would have taken over code not written outside their Dept.

When personal computers first came out they were all about the user programming it themselves. I still have some old handbooks that came with computers then (they were well written) and they were straight on to programming (in BASIC, or OPL in the case of the Psion hand-held I once had). These were easy and satisfying languages to use for what they were intended. For eg the Psion I wrote programs to keep score in Scrabble, "throw" dice, keep track of my bank balance, and such like. That is what this is about.

I am European, and, sorry, I would not have a clue how to get hold of such weapons.

GP did not say that they did. If it is the incident I am thinking of, I understand that they aimed at an open door, and one actually went in. It was a workshop door and the rocket hit a lathe. I expect it made more mess than damage.

I don't suppose the guy expected to cause much damage, but rather wanted to make some point. To me it makes the point that it is extremely difficult to damage a power station and that there are some nutters around (sorry, that's two points), but I don't think that is what he intended.

I was agreeing with you (you seemed to be describing my Brother-in-Law) until then. I am confident that I am capable about things in my own field(s) but I gather that I do not show it. People have to know me well (like the guys I work with) before they realise that. I also have a strong drive to increase my knowledge.

But thinking you can "take the time to learn" about areas in which we do not have the confidence/knowledge is a delusion. The totality of knowledge is vast*. I know nothing about music, and as a teen I decided it could stay that way (having seen how music can eat up some people's lives). You will never see me express an opinion about music.

* Confident new graduate : "I would estimate that I know 10% of all knowledge."
Wise old man : "OK, tell me what 10% of the World's population did yesterday."

If everyone who has heard of the Dunning-Kruger effect is "familiar with David Dunning", then his Christmas card list must be an epic. Why am I not on it then?

Nerdy men get hot women? I think that this thread has taken a wrong turning somewhere.