It's all right to filter out material if it's minority interest?

"What people need to appreciate here is that there is a minority of people who express an interest in the type of material being targeted for filtering. So why not filter it out?"

So, if someone thinks something shouldn't be shown on the internet, and it's a minority interest, then let's filter it out.

OK - suppose I'm working for the Australian government, and I really really dislike UK football. It's only a minority interest in Oz in any case, and it discourages people from playing good old Aussie Rules. And it encourages football hooliganism, which is violence. So, filter it out....

@Dave Jones

"Homeplug is great, i gave up trying to get wireless to work properly. Where as homeplug was up and running in 2 minutes and has worked perfectly ever since..... Sonny Jim and Anonymous Coward should get out more......."

So if you were deaf, it would be all right for you to play your music very loudly, so that the people next door couldn't even hear their TV - but hey - your can now hear your music, so they should get out more.

Not impressed.

Ha! Take that, Sarah Bee!

Bat out of Hell revives man in coma.

Could Bohemian Rhapsody claim the same?

First time in eighteen years?

So what happened to resiliency testing then?

There is no point in having a backup system if you don't test that it is still working on a regular basis.

Bohemian Rhapsody?

The most pretentious excuse for a rock song in the last fifty years.

"I see a little silhouetto of a man - Scaramouch - Scaramouch - will you do the fandango?

Thunderbolt and lightning, very very frightning me - Galileo Galileo Figaro-ro-ro-ro-ro."

Yeah, right, that's brilliant, that is.

At least Bat Out Of Hell IS a rock song.

What next - Planet of the Apes - the Musical?

Oh, hang on - the Simpsons already did that....

Is there nothing that they won't try to make into a musical?

Twelve Angry Men - The Musical?

Citizen Kane - The Musical?

Angela's Ashes - The Musical?

The Great Gatsby - The Musical?

The Old Man and the Sea - The Musical?

Sigh

Creative? Maybe...

But they still don't actually produce software which actually works.

And given the wonderful checking tools they have these days, that is unforgivable.

Font size?

Why can't I just change the font size?

Normally, I manage fine - but I'm over fifty. And sometimes, at the end of the day, when my eyes get a bit tired, I just think - you know, I'd like to increase the font size on the web pages.

And I can't.

You're hardly alone in this. But in these days of trying to increase access to disabled people, it seems a bit poor to take away my ability to change the font size of the articles. Hell, I'm not disabled - just a bit old - and you're making it harder for me.

There are two Martins with opposing views....

"Right, that should be sufficient to prove that Martin knows nothing about evolution & should be ignored.

Just to be clear; evolution is a fact."

Just for the avoidance of doubt - I am the Martin who does believe evolution is a fact. The other Martin is Martin Yirrell, who, I agree, clearly knows nothing about evolution.

@Master Baker the misogynist

Let's ignore your anecdote-based evidence, shall we? It proves absolutely nothing.

Let's just observe that women actually pay less for their car insurance. And insurance is based on real measured statistics. So why do women pay less for their car insurance? Because they generally have fewer accidents, and the ones they have cause less damage. As good a measure of "safer drivers" as I know.

The problem is....

...that loads of young people do indeed believe that they are capable of driving while texting.

Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if they think they can keep their Facebook profiles up to date safely while they are driving.

@Robert Harrison

"Since evolution has been proven beyond all rational doubt..." is a perfectly accurate statement.

It has nothing to do with the start of life, which is still a difficult one, with plenty of suggestions but no real proof yet.

But evolution - ah, yes - you really do prove yourself to be a scientific ignoramus if you do not believe that evolution is correct. It has been tested over and over, via the fossil record and via DNA testing. Predictions have been made and confirmed. And no-one - not once - has found a fossil which cannot be explained realistically by the theory of evolution.

Gravity is only a theory - albeit a very good theory. But it has been proven beyond all rational doubt.

@fLaMePr0oF and other evolution-doubters.

And actually - we can forget about the fossil record. The major evidence these days for evolution is right there in our DNA.

Try The Making of the Fittest by Sean B. Carroll. If you read that, and you are still unconvinced, then there is no hope for you.

@fLaMePr0oF

Darwin answered your point about the millions of intermediate fossils in The Origin of Species - what it comes down to is the fact that there have been a huge number of living things and only a very very tiny number of them get fossilized - it's actually remarkable how complete the fossil record is. And please - don't just quote "There aren't any" - look it up. There are absolutely scads of them. (That's not a technical evolutionary term, by the way.)

The problem is that every time someone finds an intermediate form, the creationists say "Ah-ha - there are now TWO gaps that we don't have any fossils in...."

Tiktaalik is a good example of that. It's either an amphibian with distinct fish-like capabilities, or a fish with distinct amphibian-like capabilities. Either way, people are saying "Ah, but is there anything between fish and tiktaalik?"

I am NOT an expert. But I've read enough books and articles by experts to realize that the evidence in favour of evolution is pretty well overwhelming. The only arguments about evolution are in the details. The broad picture is as certain as anything can be in science. The only people who argue with it are either people who are arguing from a position of ignorance (they've probably read a few critiques of it, like your original post), or those who are deliberately ignoring the facts because it doesn't fit with their world-view (normally, they prefer to believe that Goddunit).

Which of these are you?

@fLaMePrOoF - a balanced view?

I haven't got the time or the inclination to go through all your comments and reject them one by one - suffice it to say that every one of your criticisms of evolution just indicate a complete lack of understanding of the theory, as well as ignorance of the facts.

Just one point - "No intermediate steps in fossils" - Google archaeopteryx and tiktaalik. Then read a book like "Evolution - What the Fossils say and Why it Matters" by Prothero.

Oh dear....

Mike Ashley looks bad enough in a stripey football shirt - but Michael Dell....!!

OK, smug person with the test plan....

So even if I'd had a test plan, and run through it and it all worked fine - how would that save me if the problem is date-related?

Unless you're telling me that part of your test is to run your vmware servers with every possible date - or that you just had a suspicion that August 12th was likely to be a problem....

So... 7400 / 200 = ....

37 songs.

She's being sued for downloading and "sharing" thirty seven songs?

Gordon Bennett ! What a complete waste of time and money. It's probably cost more than $7400 to have a court hearing.

Whatever happened to caveat emptor?

Look, if something is too cheap, it's almost certainly counterfeit. That applies to Tiffany lamps bought from eBay, or Louis Vuitton handbags bought in a gift shop in Greece. It's ridiculous to expect eBay to police everything on the site. In the end, a little common sense by the buyer is called for. And if they haven't got that common sense - well, it was P T Barnum who said "It is morally wrong to allow a sucker to keep his money."

Far too expensive...

With the Panasonic FZ18 with an 18x zoom available for £199, what do you actually get for the extra £190?

OK, call me picky...

...but each week for two years, he downloads 20,000 customer details. Call that a hundred weeks. He sells these 20,000 customer details for $500. So I make that $50,000 raised by this scam.

Where do the prosecution get $70,000 from?

I sometimes think....

...that the Have Your Say mob overflow onto this site whenever anything to do with the government or politics gets mentioned.

"This is exactly the same Mail/Sun pandering excrement that got NuLabour elected ten years ago. It worked then but it won't work now because people have been able to compare the spin with the reality. Who was it that cozied up to the radical immigrant Imams who promptly set about indoctrinating impressionable young Muslims with such tragic consequences for Londoners?"

Straight out of HYS - only better spelt.

More Eagles....

Watch out Paypal - there's a new kid in town....

Isn't this dead easy?

Issue boarding pass on wrist-strap, which can't be removed except by cutting.

Confirm on entrance to plane.

Job done. No need for fingerprints.

How hard was that?

Has anyone EVER...

...used a cameraphone for a screen shot bigger than 1280 x 1024? Or a print bigger than 6x4? No? Then why do you need anything bigger than 2M pixels in a cameraphone?

Sigh.

It's all about marketing to morons. "Hey, I've got an 8M camera". "Oh, crap, mine's only 5M - I must replace it immediately."

Porn interviews.....?

"Already, however, we have some evidence of people being asked in job interviews about what type of pornography they look at....."

Adding my tuppenceworth to the list of people who want a bit more evidence for this statement than just your unsupported word.

Frankly, I simply don't believe it. And it has the effect of making my look at the whole article rather more askance.

Perhaps what is needed is a bit of capitalism...

If it cost 1p (or 1c) per recipient to send an email, and no cost to receive one; if it could be collected easily by ISPs....it could probably fund a private network for email only.

The costs would be trivial for most people, affordable for legitimate business and out of the reach of most spammers, whose "business model" banks on sending millions of emails.

Technically, it really should be feasible...

Look, I use Linux as well....

...but I'm not smug about it. One day soon, someone is going to produce a virus as successful as the I Love You one, targetted at Linux. And boy, will we look stupid.

So let's go straight to Mars, not to the Moon?

"Been there done that" is a reason not to go back to the Moon?

Well, I dunno. Seems to me to be a damn GOOD idea to go back to the Moon until we can do it in a straightforward manner - and only then think about Mars....

If I were going to try crossing Niagara Falls on a tightrope, I think I'd practice on something a bit easier first....

Nice to see a story....

...about Government data that WAS password protected. A step in the right direction...?

Long gone??

I remember my next-door-neighbour coming in and telling me about this wonderful Windows for Workgroups which allowed you to share files with each other. He was amazed.

Of course, as I was using Sun workstations at work with X-windows on them, and had been for several years, I couldn't quite see what all the excitement was about.

(And frankly, I still don't understand how Windows can work so badly. Why can't I run a program on my PC, and launch the display onto another PC without having to use special software?)

None of them are right....

....according to Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale (the very first book, not the film) Bond looked like Hoagy Carmichael.

and if you've got a Squeezebox 3 or two....

...then you can just buy the controller and it'll work with them too.

But it's a lot of money just for the controller.

I badly want one, but I can't actually justify two hundred notes for something that does what I already have (ie two Squeezeboxen)

What have Acer done to upset you?

"The Acer Aspire One looks good and is excellent value, but it’s lacking in quality and usability."

It's not been reviewed yet by anyone - it hasn't even been formally released. The best you've done is have a play with it at a trade show. How do YOU know it lacks quality and usability?

Cygwin on Wine??

Two people have said this, with every indication of being serious.

What can you do in Cygwin that you can't do in native Linux? Am I missing something?

Cygwin??

Two people have said they use Cygwin on Wine, and with every indication of seriousness.

Am I missing something? What can you do with Cygwin that you can't do with native Linux?

But why should these dcouments even be taken home?

OK, it's easier to read on paper than on a screen. But they should never leave the office in that form. If they have to be sent home or to another department, they should be sent encrypted (on a disk or by mail or sftp).

It's hardly difficult.

Which reminds me....

...of the story of two Australians in the outback, and one of them is bitten in the todger by a poisonous snake. The other one gets on the phone to the Flying Doctor and says "Me mates been bitten by a poisonous snake! What do I do?"

The Flying Doctor says "I can't get there for an hour, and you haven't got that much time. You'll have to suck the poison out of the wound."

The guy says "What?! What if I don't do that?" and the doctor says "If you don't do that, he'll die."

So the bloke returns to his injured pal, who gasps out "What did the doctor say, mate?"

And he says...."Sorry, mate - you're going to die."

Mine's the one with the hat with the corks...

A prediction.....

I predict that if Labour go ahead with this ID card project, and if they lose the next election, then the new incumbent government (presumably the Tories) will suddenly discover that ID cards are a wonderful thing after all, and given we've started, then we might as well finish it.....

And boy, is it uuuuuuglyyyy!

No, really. It would look dreadful anywhere in my house.

And yes - no network? What's the point?

Too expensive, too.

It's not going to be replacing my squeezebox.