World of Warcraft
Wrath of the Lichfield King
701 publicly visible posts • joined 28 Nov 2008
"it is going to happen one way or another"
Exactly! If a kid is interested, they'll find it somehow. Be that on t'interweb or from the discarded Fiesta in the bushes or from a friend finding their parents "adult drawer" and inviting folk round for a viewing of the videos.
The difference is, that with all sex education blocked, you end up with kids learning the -for want of a better phrase- ins and outs of it all from the fantasies on the letters page.
I always thought that Futurologists were like Hari Seldon and futurists were like Kevin Warrick at his worst.
One makes scientific predictions and tries to use less assumptions/ more data to predict likelihoods with timescales, whilst the other churns out very nebulous statements based on popular trends and full of gaps in technology progression.
Futurologist = "By the end of $decade, we will likely have a variation on $theory to enable a system of global communication. Likely candidates for the tech used will be $tech. This could be exciting"
Futurist = "in the future, we will have the ability to communicate with the rest of the world and it'll be awesome, but I have no real details. That's small stuff."
Assuming there was total parity and an end to any issues regarding gender int he UK, an intersctionalist would still fight for global equality. The idea that in the UK things are fine (which is another argument all together, but there are massive issues regarding gender inequality, 21st century britain) then the battle is won and feminism should go away is akin to saying that worrying about clean water in the rest of the world is pointless as we have it here.
I agree. I figured it was very much tongue in cheek* and playing** on the more outlandish stereotypes*** of feminist theory.
*which isn't to devalue the contribution of those with neither tongues or cheeks. Solidarity with oral differenced peoples!
**this isnt a dig at anyone without the ability to play games. Solidarity with our non imaginitive sisters!
***Stereo- or left/ right is a binary outlook. Solidarity with all shades of the spacial aural spectrum!
I agree with you on this one as it doesn't seem to have any obvious flaw and really, if you have both consoles, you're obviously going to try something that means much less hassle to swap games around.
I would genuinely like to hear the motivation behind the creator of this.
The "iOS7 makes your phone waterproof" thing I have less sympathy -that isn't to say "none", though -with folk over as the big warning/ nonsense that the OS affecting the hardwares physical properties.
Oh do fuck off!
Of all the lame "hey, whatever it is, that's what we're down with" branding bollocks, this has to be the worst..... Even UK-PLC was less annoying and desperate sounding.
My hairstylist has a website and uses a computer for inventory and wages. Does that make mop chopping a tech industry too?
I guess as a prototype and proof of concept this is great, but it will surely need a little more oomph to be practical?
I wonder if this could be used during the day to charge batteries so that in the evening the lights can use the stored power?
Outside of the overseas application, this would be great as a kids nighlight that is easy to use whilst also being passively educational.
I haven't used Motorolla since I had a brick with a pull out areial and keypad flap back in the late 1990s. This may tempt me back.
This is serious tech for them money, which means either the others are selling at crazy inflated prices or the margins ont he moto are razor (RAZR?) thin/ it's a loss leader.
Either way, that's another for the list of potentials for replacements for my rapidly approcahing upgrade.
The gender of the architect had no bearing on what I thought the design looked like. Until this article, I had no idea if the person in question was male or female.
If something looks like a foo, it looks like a foo regardless of the designers ownership of biological inspiration.
I doubt that had it been designed by a man -as one or two commentors have already suggested- the comparrison would have been any different.
Strikes me that the "breathing stuff in" and vapour thing makes sense. There's lot of things associated with any habitual activity. Most smokers that are giving up cite the habitual activities as being very difficult to overcome and it makes sense that the brathing in and exhalation mouth/ throat feel would be an aspect.
Just out of curiosity, how can the opinion of police officers in Australia set legal precedent in the US where the case is being heard? Even if it were to be heard in Australia, how does a police depts opinion affect statutes in such a way to set legal precedent?
I can't really comment on the legal difference between "acceptable" and "chelmsford" though.
My comment about the usual "may not be accurate" disclaimer was more along the lines of: Given the black/ white nature of things, if there has already been a warning that the data may not be accurate/ cannot be relied on 100% then it'll be much more difficult to claim that even when knowing that it wasn't accurate you acted as though you believed it to be so.
I hadn't realized it needed spelling out, my bad.
I totally agree that a massive flaw in a safety critical system is life threatening. However, I suppose the idea that using sat-nav on a mobile as a safety critical device stretches things a bit.
I also agree that the issue with the maps was disasterously bad and that Apple should have allowed returns and refunds when requested, but thats really the only part of the case I agree with.
To use your analogy fo the car with 8 gears, if they said "you can either return it or keep using it until the gearbox update, your choice" and you chose to keep it, then you have nowt to complain about. Although, Apple *should* have allowed returns.
You seem *really* angry.
.... that most maps/ sat nav apps have a small "may not be totally accurate" type of disclaimer as part of their T&Cs.
I tend to use my phone as a twat-nav when I'm driving in unfamiliar cities, so I can see why she may be pretty pissed off, but I still doubt there's much of a case to answer. If there *is* a case to answer, I'm totally suing everyone that's ever given me wrong directions.....
I dunno. Travelling to Mars and dying of old age/ whatever is a suicide trip, but I feel that it would be much cooler than waiting the same amount of time to die on Earth.
Yes, there are added dangers in the journey and hostile environemnt, but offsetting that is the removal of earth based problems like motorways and facebook-instead-of-concentrating truck drivers.
Sandman, I totally agree. I reckon the 3d printer will be a common tool in the garage when folk realize that it can be used to make those annoying, easily breakable/ losable plastic bits that *every* modern product seems to have that no-one sells the replacements for.
The original tune is a triumph of lateral thought, electronic "what if"-ery and passion.
Sometimes, in the world of VSTs and modeling hardware, we forget how difficult it must have been and how much work went in to making the basics that made the instruments that made the music.
As an aside -although slightly linked as they both brought electronic music to the masses, any chance of an article on Wendy Carlos' work/ wizardry?
Nightmare.
Everyone transfered over, got to keep our desks, phones and building and everything looked the same. Changingt he templates and headed paper weren't a problem, but then we realized that we weren't wanted there, the dept entered a rolling redundancy phase. We would come in weekly and check to see if we were in the "justify your job or GTFO" tranche. Many of whome couldn't justify the crazy requirements and those that weren't at risk started getting massive downgrades -some the equivalent of 2 council grades.
Worst of all, the previously free coffee supply was stopped!!!
I jumped as soon as I could.
My first PS2 came to me from a friend who'd bought a new one after theirs developed the disk read fault.
One replaced laser carriage later and I had a working PS2. It's all well and good saying "but they have waranties" and so on, but for those of us who are constantly playing catchup, knowing the common faults -and how to repair them - is essential.
What would happen if the lady in question had a unique piece of jewelry or tattoo in their nether regions? That would be enough to identify them (at least to anyone else who has seen them naked) so would a release form be necessary?
Surely, though, if something is *inside your clothes* it's private and not a public space?
I'll be interested to see the outcome here, they have the opportunity to really fuck up or to make a very good point....
Aside from the "HA!!! Your fave brand of shiney beads was mentioned.... YOU'RE AS GUILTY AS HITLER" shoutybollocks, what can actually be done?
That's not a rhetorical question. What can we actually do to ensure that our gadgety goodness is as ethical as possible? I know that food has its fair trade certifications and clothing firms make a big deal of whatever ethical sourcing they go through, so is there a recognised ethical electronics mark? I suspect that no company is a saint and somewhere along the line exploitation occurs, but being able to buy products that damage the fewest folk would be nice.
All the anger and fear seems to come down to the phrase "facial recognition". The beeb were particularly bad at their reporting and le reg not too far behind.
The facial recognition here seems more akin to that used by digital cameras that recognise a face when in "auto exposure" mode, than the system used to identify a person by recognising their face.
Recognising the face, not recognising and identifying a person through looking at their face.
The process seems to be (after reading their spec sheets):
Camera sees person or persons approaching.
Camera recognises where their face is supposed to be, software uses a fuzzy logic algorithm with lots of weighting factors (which the beeb dumbed down to "uses length of hair to determine gender") to decide gender and approx age.
The set of adverts designed for {Gender} and {Age} is shown on a screen. No "Hey, Dave smith!! You need to buy a shoe!!", just generic adverts, but ones that best suit the demographic of the folk heading towards the tills.
System records "{Advert type} {Gender}, {Age}, {# of faces pointed at screen} during display.
No other data stored so the system "forgets" what it last saw.
Repeat
Bad journalism spins story as "cameras recognise *your* face and advertise directly to *you*. This is big brother!!!eleventyone
Folk scream, panic and say how bad it is whilst ignoring the multiple CCTV cameras inside and outside the store, the data they give over on their cards, personal info they heamorrage on social media and so on, all of which is full of personally identifiable markers and *is* stored.
Privacy bods make a big noise about something that *would* be an issue if it were actually happening, which it isn't.
Plus, it's amstrad. It'll be fucked within a week.