Posts by Mark
3419 posts • joined Friday 5th October 2007 13:42 GMT
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@Daniel Palmer
And women who cannot give birth are not real women either? A man without spooge is not a real man?
There are (IIRC) 27 different medical categories of human sexuality. Male and Female are just two.
@Steve: your brain is broken.
How do we get from
a=RAND()*10000+1
to
Global Cooling scare? Which scare, I may say was not one from the scientists but from two (yes, that's right TWO) newspapers. Have you ever read the paper? I bet you haven't.
You aren't lost, you don't even know where you're going.
@Nexox Enigma
However, these nutjobs are complaining about being allergic to EM.
That doesn't make any difference whether it is X, Gamma, IR, Visible or any other form of photon excitation.
@John
"These people, on the whole, genuinely _believe_ that they are EMF sensitive. Calling them f*tards, etc is just childish and mean."
No meaner than making shit up because you don't want the eyesore. This has FUCKALL to do with sensitivity. These morons don't LIKE it and they are making shit up to make it fit the laws.
Please, prove they _genuinely_ believe this bullshit.
Posted in US stocks up on semi-automatic rifles
@USMC
"When I carry a gun, I don't do so because I am looking for a fight, but because I'm looking to be left alone."
I'm left alone and I don't carry a gun.
Doesn't seem needed, does it.
Posted in US stocks up on semi-automatic rifles
Dear pr-gun lobby
One of the problems with owning a gun for protection is that normal people DO NOT LIKE KILLING.
So you wave a gun around and use it to threaten. But if they have a gun, they are likely to get it out and shoot YOU. 'Cos they are already breaking the law one way and will likely have done this before, so are less hesitant about using it.
It's the same with protecting yourself from "the government". You think it will be solved by threatening? No. The forces arrayed have already been briefed and you are the enemy. They don't know why you do this, but you are armed and they have been told you're bad. They are ready to shoot.
Armed populace will only throw over a tyrant when the general populace are ready to kill (not just die, kill) without hesitation to get their way. Otherwise they are holding a weapon that is more dangerous to themselves than their opponents. And their opponents do not have the same problem as you.
Posted in US stocks up on semi-automatic rifles
re: Dear anti-gun lobby
And the main reason why is twofold:
a) There weren't many legitimate guns anyway, so most were already illegal. And carried by crims whose flippin JOB DESCRIPTION requires they break the law.
b) US gun worship. Monkey see, monkey do.
Posted in US stocks up on semi-automatic rifles
re: Physician heal thyself
But being armed with pistols won't stop an APC. Which the police WOULD use because an armed mob stormed the Parliament Building.
Now, if we were unarmed, the police would have to deal without being inside a nice safe wagon. A million people walking along the road will be unstoppable unless they use lethal weapons of mass destruction on them. And at that point, the Police will have lost. If they don't and do not get out of the way, the police will be a smear of red on the ground.
No guns needed. As it is, the arms allowed are pitifully inadequate to even the score and give some legitimacy to the use of these more effective weapons.
Posted in US stocks up on semi-automatic rifles
Go the whole hog
Demand the same level of weaponry as the US Army has. Then you CAN be a millitia. If some state goes rogue and invades YOUR state, they'll have APC's and so on, impervious to any small arms available under the interpretation of the 2nd by the GOP.
So you NEED a MANPAC and other major arms to counter this threat.
Heck, if the US states want to split but the ***central*** government doesn't want it to (which they can't constitutionally deny), how are you going to manage to stop the armed forces without SAMs, AA flack, and the whole panoply of modern war?
Nuclear arms can be dismissed because the use of any such against the US home ground would ensure that the US administration face the same fate as Saddam. Times ten. At least.
So if the NRA were serious, they would DEMAND the full array of weapons be available at a state, county or even urban level, maybe with state acceptance as a proper state millitia (so you can't have gangland thugs or supremacists stockpiling 105 howitzers). But with that, the personal home level owning of arms should be set to the normal paraphenalia for an individual citizen acting against other ordinary citizens: small arms, single fire.
Or admit that the 2nd is already broken and assess whether automatics actually fit in the new, reduced accepted meaning of the 2nd.
@Steve
How do you prove something there when it is swamped by noise? Well, noise being what we call "randomly distributed" cancels out when you average. So a computer statement:
a=RAND()*10000+1;
will show the "+1" when you have at least 100000000 values of a to look into. Even though the signal is 10,000 times smaller than the noise.
That is how.
@DutchOven
Actually, since he would have proven an atheist immoral, I'll eat HIM!
Bwahahahahahahahaaa!
re: Whoever issues it, surely the cost should be 0?
So how will it be made? After all, free doesn't pay for materials, salaries, machinery and all the support paraphenalia.
How will it be paid for if it is free?
By coming out of increased taxes (which the rich can afford to bypass and the middle classes and poor cannot) or by reducing services (which the rich use as an emergency backup, so won't see the difference).
So you'll end up paying for it anyway, just not in a way you can avoid.
@Dave
IIRC Dave, the striations on the end of a male penis is as unique as a fingerprint and has the added advantage that you don't leave it on cups, stairs and doorknobs. Unless that's your sort of thing...
So whip that whanger out and say "Take your print off that, Darlin'!".
The queue for the scanner system may drop considerably when you wipe your wang to get through the gate. And the police won't be able to take you to jail for flopping the fellow out because they are demanding you do so!
I'm not sure if women have a suitable replacement...
I couldn't help myself
Does this mean they'll be strapped for cash???
Explanation? Why?
"Now PLEASE explain the Big Bang to me rationally. I get a bit confused about the idea that everything suddenly appeared out of nothing, no-when and for no reason."
Why? You don't seem to need one to believe that God suddenly appeared out of nothing, no-when and for no reason.
Time started. The universe was there when it started. What happened "before" time started is a silly question.
However, if you MUST have a rationale for this (please supply one for your sky pixie), what about before the BB there was a previous universe undergoing it's big crunch?
Finally, if there is a God then there _must_ be a reason for living
What if the reson is "God was bored so made up idiots to laugh his arse off at"?
Why must there be a reason and why must we be part of it just because there's a "god"?
You are saying nothing that has any basis in anything other than your personal faith. And so calling it any form of truth is bollocks.
Now, what if there's a reason and WE OURSELVES MAKE IT? Hmm? Is that not any different from a sky fairy making one up for us?
How about poor old god. Up there in the sky with no reason for existence. Unlike you lucky humans. Maybe that's why he's so pissed off at us, smug bastards that we are.
My approach which is far more human than yours is that just because there's no God doesn't mean we're an irrelevant accident. We can make our own reason for existence. After all, in your "mind" God doesn't need one, but you don't call HIM an irrelevant accident.
You have no faith in yourself.
If you had that, you would not be so malleable to evil works.
PS: you're going there, because the likelihood you have the wrong god is a whole lot bigger than there being no god.
@David Kelly
".Sure, but the average Joe is not going to ask very technical questions about the car mechanics, just as they wouldn't ask how the kernel has been compiled in a distro."
And the average joe doesn't need to ask "Will I use KDE/IceWM/...". And they don't. All they have to use is WMP. Just like with Windows.
@Gordon
Gordon,
You clone the chip.
You put YOUR pic on it.
You are now THEM. How many people are trained to work out signatures? So why are so many people looking at the signature? Because that's what they must do. Whether it is genuine cannot be assessed but that isn't in the job description.
Similarly, Whacky's prints will be on the card. Your pic will be on the card. And Jaqui won't be able to get herself on there because there's a collision in prints.
NOTE: what is stored is a hash effectively of the print, not the print itself. So you have no proof that you "stole" Jaqui's prints, since you don't HAVE the prints you used on the card. And anyone who knows that the print isn't on there will then know that it's possible to have a collision between two numbers in a hash.
So how does Jaqui get an ID card???
@David Kelly
"You know that, I know that, but does the average Linux noob? No."
And do they need to know it?
A whole lot less than they need to know the differences between Vsita Basic, Vista Premium and Vista Ultimate.
Don't hear you saying that these are confusing, do we.
@Matt Eagles
Aye, and all the women are mousey haired with glasses but as soon as they put away the glasses and let their hair down, they turn out to be drop dead gorgeous and REALLY rampant sexually.
Oh, hang on, that's only in my dreams.
Sigh.
PH is confused too. She *always* wears a white labcoat...
re: I couldn't resist...
However, Gotherella wasn't the one phoned up and abused. Her grandad was.
So, has Andrew Sachs gotten any new work?
Also, I think it somewhat ironic that your post almost entirely gloats:
"It's almost distilled essence of fail!"
and yet goes straight into epic fail mode itself:
"Her chosen career has most likely taken a serious upturn because of this - methinks she doth protest too much!"
Which is an EPIC FAIL because the woman herself has not complained once. She's even said publicly that she thinks it overdone.
Don't YOU bother to read what you're posting about either????
PS: That's YOU, that is!
@Mad Dave
"Hatred"? Isn't "You're all going to roast in HELL!!!!" hatred too? Isn't "only those with a belief in God can be moral, since God is the source of moral thought" hatred too?
Isn't "You're lying" hatred? Well, that's what christians do each and every day to people who don't believe and try and explain it.
Isn't it hatred to say that if someone says you're wrong (in that your actions are not deserved, such as "ID should be a science so taught in class 'to show the controversy'") then turn about and accuse them of racist bigotry? Isn't it also arrogant in the extreme to believe that? Because you're saying it is IMPOSSIBLE for someone to tell you you're a frigging idiot without doing so just because they hate you and not, for example, because you're a FRIGGING IDIOT?
Stop trying to play the "poor me, you're all picking on me. You're mean" card. It doesn't wash with your arrogance.
Posted in Europe takes aim at BBC licence fee
re: Make the Beeb subscription only
No. Then all that will be shown is the same shite as on all the other channels. Anything that is not for the lowest common denominator will be dropped because providing it would risk alienating the larger (dumber) section. Not because lots of people are dumb necessarily, but that if you have something lowbrow, the intelligent people will get it as will the dumb ones. But if you have something highbrow, the dumb buggers won't like it and that's ALWAYS less than the dumb+smart total. Unless you have negative numbers of dumb people...
The reason why Equinox went from C4 was because it was more expensive than Brookside and had a lot fewer viewers. One reason for De Bono's Thinking Course (or The Great Egg Race, for that matter) to die was this was again "outside the mainstream" so if it were competing with "Home and Away", the LCD would be on ITV or wherever instead of on BBC2.
All Sky needed to do was put something wanted on a competing channel (simpsons/futurama for example) and that would kill the competing product. So each side had to place the LCD compatible stuff at prime time. Else they would lose custom to their rival and therefore lose revenue. And so they all became the same.
Because they had to have a large number of viewers to pay the price for "the most popular" programs which went up because they could be auctioned to the highest bidder.
A fee based channel like BBC don't have to pander to that. Or at least they didn't. And it was then a unique channel and kept the others varied to try and keep the highbrow market, small as it may be, available for them.
@AC
"You're wrong and I'm right" is the only explanation you CAN give to children. You have to teach them a SHITLOAD of stuff before they can meaningfully negotiate their own way to the truth. For evolution, you have to learn biology, chemistry, phylogeny, geology, radio carbon dating, physics and a whole lot of debating techniques (and really good english skills) before they can look at the evidence of evolution and see where people are arguing from ignorance and where there are genuine unknowns or uncertainties.
But to get there, you have to teach them.
But without "I'm right, you're wrong", you have to teach them biology, chemistry....
Evolution comes up in a science class for Junior School or first year Secondary.
Do 12-14 year olds have to learn nuclear physics (so they can understand the dating techniques that give the ages of geological strata etc) JUST so we can say "The Human evolved from the Ape" without having to say "I'm right"?
Posted in Europe takes aim at BBC licence fee
re: What public service...
Problem is that the BBC is fucked wherever it goes.
The BBC DID used to do stuff that really worked. They weren't commercial but for that reason, only the BBC would have the balls to do it.
Series like Tomorrows World were hilarious in their failures but tried to make science and technology available (not "fun" or "interesting" but available). Horizon. Excellent series. The sidelined sports were on BBC2 where footie and rugby are commercially viable and shown on all channels. Comedies that wouldn't take elsewhere (Young Ones), drama that wouldn't sell (Dr Who) and all sorts of one-offs that would NOT get airtime (Die Nibelung full operatic production) were available. Hell, anyone here NOT been astounded at The World At War?
However, "The People" complained that the BBC should become "more relevant" and should show stuff that appealed to a larger audience. So one soap became 10 soaps. Science dropped. Drama disappeared. And then you had a BBC that was no better than Sky.
And now that the BBC doesn't have any individuality in the networks (because they were told to be more like the other channels and not be so elitist) YOU come along and say "what public service".
The BBC Were FORCED to change to be mainstream.
A frigging shame.
There's still the occasional gem produced (Band of Brothers, for example) but the crap overwhelms it.
And the huge salaries like JR or TW are a result of trying to show that the BBC is trying to keep public general appeal and not get close down by keeping the names at the BBC.
Posted in Europe takes aim at BBC licence fee
@Tim Almond
"Just because it's to your taste, why should other people pay for it?"
Similarly, why is it when something not to my taste is up, I pay for it? I don't LIKE what you like. So can I get a refund from Sky for all those shopping channels, kidsTV and soaps they shove at me?
I still have to pay full whack.
The reason is that there should be a SPECTRUM of content, not just the rush to the bottom that pure mercantilism demands on a subscription service. And that means that a lot more content won't be to YOUR taste, but more will be to MINE. Some to NEITHER of our tastes but to the taste of some others.
re: That Leatherman question...
No it isn't clear.
What if you are going to the pub after your hiking?
What if you're a CREW member and going to the pub after work?
What if you're cycling to the pub?
And can bakers carry an 8" bread knife?
OK, V. It was mostly a PS TK.
Although if we're going to go all allegorical, as I said before, why should the main character be the only one that gets to be real rather than allegory?
Posted in MP calls for Jezza Clarkson's head
Complaints
About one in ten people complain when they would LIKE to complain. A rough rule of thumb. So that 0.01% is probably about the 0.1% mark.
Lots of people are lazy and would rather let someone else complain.
This does have its problems: if there aren't many complaints, the "completely hatstand" segment have a bigger say. E.g. one of the complaints about "Mission Impossible" (the movie) was "it was too complicated".
???
About the only way that could be taken is that they didn't know who the baddie was until the movie was more than half over.
But they listened to the barnpot brigade and MI2 had the baddie reveal himself as the baddie before the opening credits.
re: One word - Light
Hell, IR is an EM wave.
They should cool their bodies to 0K NOW, before they are killed by the EM from their very own bodies!!!
See, Register, THIS is why we need a male dumbass icon! You'll just have to imagine he likes dressing up in (foil) women's clothing...
@John savard
And they also forced non-christians to chant "one country, under god" in the oath of allegience, despite that being a recent invention and the ORIGINAL oath didn't say that.
And all the dollar bills have "in god we trust".
Oh, and they get charity status.
So they do get a lot of help from the government as it is. Don't be stingy about having to pay for it.
@Gareth
Well the penal system is supposed to reform, not punish.
So how will this stop this happening again?
It won't.
What WILL stop it happening again is SECURE YOUR FRIGGING SYSTEMS.
If your knob keeps faiing out your Y fronts, you buy new Y fronts, not sue everyone for seeing your dangler.
DNA matches
The chance of a DNA match are based on the human population. Most of which don't live in your neighbourhood (unless you live in Second Life) and most of which have much less genetically similarities to you than, say, your brother or aunt. Who, surprisingly enough, more often live in the same area as you, where you may become a suspect.
An extreme case would be the movie Judge Dredd.
DNA matches between people in the same village is NOT of the 1-in-14 million variety.
Cut your bread with a penknife...
Hey, I went to the shops to buy some bread and bits so I can have a picnic.
It's for cutting the bread.
Yes, I do have to work at it. It's tough brown bread.
Mine's the one with spring-loaded 2.5" blades in the pocket, a' la Sword And the Sorcerer...
Posted in Yang! tells! MS! to! buy! Yahoo!
@AC
No, the CEO is to manage the company to the benefit of the shareholders, the workers and the public that give them the rights of incorporation.
That CEO's use the US securities law to justify butt-fucking EVERYONE they can doesn't mean that this is required of them.
Then again, you spout neocon agenda and this probably sounds alien to you.
re: Creation or evolution.
"It is quite amazing that these people who are so positive that evolution is correct are frightened of creationists."
Why then do creationists keep trying to get their dogma introduced into science classes? How is that fear?
If you can, then please tell me where I can get A.J.Crowley's work introduced in the Sunday Service...
re: It's a metaphor...
And God is not real. It's just a metaphor.
The Universe itself is a thing beyond our knowledge but within our grasp to understand. It isn't an intelligence, it is merely the process of the universe acting under its own nature toward an end that it neither knows, cares or drives for. It just exists because that is what it is for. To exist.
Why not? If bits in the bible are metaphor or allegory, then why must the central character be real?
re: Virtual time
Ha! Banged up in Second Life?!
Like it!
"You are condemned to four years hard labour farming for my Son in WoW!".
"AAARRRGGHH!"
@Anonymous Coward
So, instead of lording it over us with your gigantic intellect, explain what they really say.
re: INTELLIGENT DESIGN
You seem to be saying that the universe is set for intelligent life and this is so mindbogglingly unlikely that there MUST be an intelligence behind it.
However, that intelligence must have come about in a system that is set for intelligent life and this is so mindbogglingly unlikely that this intelligence MUST have an intelligence behind it.
But THAT intelligence must have come about in a system that is set for intelligent life and this is so mindbogglingly unlikely that this intelligence MUST have an intelligence behind IT.
...
re: Adam & Eve...
Vaughn, are you calling Adam a monkey!!!
We are not descended from apes. Apes and us descended from a common ancestor (which, to the ape would be a manlike ancestor if he were as stupid about it as some creationists). That ancestor was not an ape. Neither were they human. They were another species.
All dogs are descended from a wolf. Even Chihuahuas. And they're about as far as looking like a wolf as you can get. But we don't seem to say that the Chihuahua is descended from a Great Dane, do we, just because they have the same (different) ancestor species.
re: Proof?
"What sort of proof can science provide for a God who almost certainly exists outside of time?"
None.
Which is why God and discussions about such belong in a religious discussion, not a science one.
Why then do the christian activists seem to want to insist? you don't see scientists demanding that general relativity is taught in RE classes, or that home economics should be taught from the pulpit.
re: Ready, aim, fire
Well it's only fair: the religious nuts (such as yourself) keep sniping about things they don't understand and use that lack of understanding as PROOF that science is bogus.
Or is it only Christians who are allowed to say "you're wrong"?
re Only those...
And John Prescott had something to hide and was REALLY upset at the invasion of his privacy.
You see, we all have things to hide. It's called "privacy".
Now ask for a FOIA release of MI5 documents. They don't have anything to hide, do they? 'cos your oft-repeated meme indicates that "something to hide" means "something nefarious to hide". And that isn't the case of this government or any branch thereof, is it. So they have nothing to hide. So why do they refuse to release information then?
Oh, maybe "something to hide" is not a bad thing.
"a competitive open market."
How can it be a competitive market when you MUST buy?
And if you're meant to operate at a profit (private companies do, you know), how can it be cheaper than in-house government workers doing it? The CEO of Accenture gets more than a high level Civil Servant, I'm sure...
re: @Mark re: Ubuntu
Whichever one you have handy.
NONE of them use the Vista UI. NONE of them use the XP UI. So she'll have to use "Another" UI in any case. The differences from there are irrelevant unless you're a system admin.
@Paul
Paul, it's only fluid by the lack of application of rigour.
And the fluidity can cause problems.
Imagine being an old Eton-schooled man visiting the everglades. You're very happy at your lovely holiday and wish to let people know. So you tell them you're having a gay old time in their lovely country.
Uh oh.
re: Please oh please...
There is.
RPM is the mandated part of the Linux Standards Base.
This is why "alien" is available for debian based Linux distributions.
However, since you cannot tell a distributor they CANNOT do X or MUST do Y and have every single one of them obey (this is NOT a dictatorship), some systems don't use RPMs.
The bad stick RPM gets is more to do with the piss-poor work most people put into creating an RPM. Similarly, the good rep a deb package has is because of the extreme care taken by deb packagers.
PS why don't you ask that MS produce a single installer package, not a new frigging one with each application (and forbid others using anything other than the One Blessed Package Manager)?
Posted in MP calls for Jezza Clarkson's head
OK, I get the offense
If it were "Lorry drivers are being impugned". But this floored me:
"To do so with complete disregard for the families of the murdered women should make this a matter on which I would expect you to take immediate action."
If he'd said "and damn good job too" I would then make the connection between "Lorry drivers kill prozzies" and "You're insulting the families".
As it is, no. No I can't.
Is this Chris Mole trying to bag a hot female constituent? Or just trying to bag the feminist vote by "standing up for women"?
re: Only time will tell
Try looking at Cedega to see if it supports your required games.
