Re: Double insult

"<-- My kind of piss."

You drink Carling?

Re: "even the movies often fail to get the genre right."

Sean,

You don't like a lot of popular fantasy; fair enough.

You seem to want to:

a) convince the world that things they enjoy actually suck

b) redefine a genre into something less popular / different.

Telling people that, essentially, their tastes suck and yours are awesome isn't really a winning strategy. Nor is it going to make you any friends.

I guess my point is: grow up.

Re: STA Travel...

The article does not say STA Travel have no liability for their misleading adverts, it just says Google *do* have responsibility for publishing misleading adverts.

They both were naughty.

I presume STA Travel were charged separately.

Re: I thought Google did this already

This is advertisers paying to have their dodgy adverts shown doing the bad stuff, not website owners getting paid to show adverts,

if I hired a taxi and told the driver to run over a bunch of people would he be responsible?

only the sith deal in absolutes

A boycott is a viable form of protest, but isn't the only one.

Petitions and letter writing are acceptable ways of letting a company know that you, as a customer, are not happy with their behaviour. If they ignore you, or decide to continue with their current practices then you as an individual can make a decision to take your business elsewhere, or not.

To suggest that the only option is for everyone to go straight to boycott, without first registering your discontent, is rather extreme and, frankly, a bit silly.

and if you do boycott, let the company know or they probably wont notice!

take a look at waze, on android and iphone (and blackberry)

I think you mean the sale of goods act, AFAIK the Consumer Rights Act doesn't exist, so they would be quite correct to refuse of acknowledge its existence!

"What if they haven't got any benefits to withdraw?"

thats just crazy talk

democracy != 100,000 people making a law

but a lot of games from the 80s/90s were fun!

A lot of the facebook style games need imagination, rather than fast paced fancy graphics, and people seem to love that.

To be an obvious troll:

The markets are intended to allow people to buy and sell assets.

These guys are buying and selling assets, so their behaviour is congruent with a markets raison d'etre.

>If the only benefit to the system is in providing liquidity

But if I buy a stock with my monthly savings the only benefit I am providing to the market is 'liquidity'. Should I be banned? (Hopefully I am providing benefit to myself with future value, and benefit to the seller who wants cash now. But that is true of these guys as well)

and to stop being a troll;

I sort of understand where you are coming from but, to my mind, there is a big difference between 'these guys are harming stuff' and 'these guys haven't justified their profits to the baying mob'

hell a tax on anyone holding under 5 mins would solve this

In fairness the site doesn't claim to do any testing. Its a bit odd it doesn't check you are running windows before marking for that but it is clearly aimed at the great unwashed who all use windows.

I wonder what score anyone running a Mac gets? This site does seem a little un-thought out.

Odd - AFAIK Opera was one of the options in that 'choose your browser' thing they ran with Win7. I would have thought all those browsers would work

You mean 268 not 253, and that is the highway code, not law.

in most cases you don't have this right, so you can't give it up.

Wanting something you don't have is not the same as giving up something you do have.

My habits seem to be becoming:

Turn Tv on

Begin watching

Go to kitchen to get drink

Get distracted, do some washing up

Start playing on computer

Girlfriend gets home, gets confused and asks why the cats are watching star trek

(Icon for my shameful waste of leccy)

presumably Alan has his own beliefs, why do you feel the need to shove yours down his throat?

Unless I have significantly misunderstood your argument you seem to suggest 'purpose' can only be granted by some god. If so then you have a different definition of purpose than me!

>You have no purpose because purpose implies intelligence and creation.

I have (some) intelligence and ability to create, so therefore I have purpose? Sometimes I waste hours playing games or watching TV - I am mentally switched off and certainly not creating anything (of use - certain gasses perhaps) - and it is fair to say in those times I have no purpose, other times I have clear goals I am striving towards, a specified target to create. In these times I defiantly have purpose! Self defined purpose (or boss defined maybe) as opposed to some god, but since we are assuming god doesn't exist that this is irreverent.

And does purpose require intelligence? A hungry animal hunting for food has a certain purpose. Bacteria composting some organic material has purpose (or possibly two!)

>We can pretend that there is a reason to live and reproduce and that pretending is genetically built in, because those who don't have it would not be inclined to bother surviving

We have a sense of self-preservation, or a survival instinct. Is this a reason to survive? Or are we pretending? We (mostly) have an instinct to reproduce, even before we have heard about 'the selfish gene', are we still pretending?

I can see so many holes in your post I can only assume I don't understand it. I haven't read Nietzsche, so maybe your whole post was a bit Stephen Fry for me.

Agnostic means you don't know if there is a God/Gods or not.

Atheist (broadly) means you don't believe there is a God/Gods

You clearly believe there is no God, so it is odd you identify yourself as agnostic. Perhaps you don't know what you believe?

You post however does not seem to attempt to make any point, other than to be offensive to as many people as possible while making yourself look like an ass.

If you believe in God(s), don't or simply don't know this doesn't mean you have to go out of your way to troll people who believe different to you.

Personally I don't believe in any God, but I don't know if I'm right on that one (maybe I should hedge my bets and start a religious youtube channel or something)

I sort of agree with you regarding younger generations getting softer (myself included!) but on the other hand you can't dismiss improving working conditions as totally being a bad thing!

We have, in general in the west, moved away from working hard to survive to working to improve our lot.

but if IBM registered lotus.car or lotus.shoes then it would be a clear case of trademark infringement.

if the new domain is .generic then yes who ever got there first would get it.

Do you have a better way of running things?

>when it was "only" 90F I'd wear a jacket (and that's not exaggeration!)

90F is 32C, and you wore a jacket - guess you're right about being a wimp!

If it was half that temp (and overcast / breezy) then you would be justified wearing a jacket!

it would be a pretty inefficient heater if it didn't have a heating element.

or add a light or buzzer or something

It sounds like you are suggesting that anyone who can be bothered to sign a petition can't "be bothered to get off their arses and actually vote"?

I would have thought someone showing enough interest to petition would have more than enough motivation to vote.

>enough's enough.

>If the offenders are minors, then try them as adults.

Yeah and also I don't think they should have access to lawyers, or have any right to a fair trial either

point of order

>and tell him I maintain the copyrights on the designs which he can't have.

Lucas didn't do this bit.

I know this wasn't what was argued in the case, but if you start making up facts to support your case then your whole post is... doomed (last word said in a generic voice, def not sounding like a slightly depressed android, sorry droid)

>And if he's wanted somewhere for eating children?

then thumbs down to the guy

@AC

Really?

a) Different in quantity? Do you have any evidence that the average freetard post torrents/internet has more content (that they would otherwise buy) pirated compared to pre torrents/internet. I would suspect not.

b) Better quality? Well yes, pirated stuff is better quality than it used to be, but so is paid stuff. Better technology is better I suppose, doesn't really make pirating any worse than it used to be. (and I would suggest the vast majority of pirated songs / movies etc are piss poor quality anyway)

c) Pish, Albums are dead anyway. Yes it is easier to get (pirated and to a lesser extent legal) movies and TV shows now (I don't have to wait for them to be shown on BBC/ITV anymore) but again this is better technology being better, not really making the modern 'home taping' any worse than it used to be.

But you are right Crossley's actions don't really have much effect on the morality of pirating content.

why?

why would you have any say in how someone elses photo is used? Whoever took the photo owns the rights to it surely?

fixed that for ya

"from another retailer for 20% off your sticker price" should be

"from another retailer for 20% of your sticker price"

raised it one level

you mean after dropping it two levels?

Is it only me

Is it only me that is getting really bored of trolls:

1) Accusing authors / other commentards of being paid corporate shills

Sure - it does happen, but when you accuse someone of being a shill, just because you disagree with them, kinda makes you sound like a shill.

2) Moaning in your (published) comment that your comment is unlikely to pass moderation ('cos their out to get you).

My God - Have you never read any reg comments before? Seriously go read some; criticism of an article or author pov, or just bat-shit crazy conspiracy ramblings are all a-ok as far as the mods are concerned.

timing

>But the timing and the tone of these two articles is astoundingly poor.

Yeah updating your readers on a unfolding major international story really is bad form.

and pointing out that although this is serious almost no-one has died (1 crane op in an accident last I heard) but some scummy jurnos we getting this confused with the huge amount of dead from earthquake/tsunami is really terrible. Its almost like Lewis wants to get those facts recognized.

Bill Hicks PR (The Fuzzy Wotnot)

This is a thread about Bing making a boo-boo, please don't pollute it with your spammy advertising for Bill Hicks and his old jokes. I don't want to buy the product you are advertising.

Thanks.

There was talk of taking this further

There was talk of taking this idea even further, if you drive on risky roads your premium goes up, the only obvious problem would be if some 'dodgy' areas command higher premiums and they happen to have a large population of a certain minority then this would be considered indirect discrimination.

positive discrimination

positive discrimination is already outlawed

The law does not recognize positive discrimination only discrimination. If anyone is discriminated against, male, female, black or white, they can take legal action against the offender.

positive discrimination is still discrimination

>The MET famously only considered applicants from an ethnic backgroud. So, if you were white, your application was torn up.

This policy was also famously slapped down by the courts for racial discrimination.

The law is quite clear throughout Europe, discrimination (sex,age,race,martial status etc) is illegal weather 'pro' or 'neg'.

fanbois?

or could it be the first post made an incorrect statement about a product they know nothing about and then flamed everyone who brought that product?

Many people replied saying that the comment was incorrect, many more couldn't be bothered to feed the troll and just downvoted (which is sort of the whole point of being able to vote!)

mileage

The various quotes I get from insurance companies always ask for an estimated annual mileage, (ok so its an estimate and often wrong but they are trying),

perhaps it would be better to ask for the actual mileage on my car, or grab it from mot database as you suggest.

Once they have estimated the risk of an individual knowing if they are doing 5k or 500k a year would be a big help!

a few of your points

>So why, when there is a huge amount of statistical evidence to support the insurance industry's premium differentials, are people complaining about this?

When applied to a large group it may be true that men have more expensive accidents than women but insurance isn't sold to a 'large group' it is sold to an individual (Well an individual and a car usually). If you compare two similar individuals, male and female, then just charging more to the bloke is clearly ridiculous if you don't look at other factors including history. To an individual how you drive, where you drive and where you leave you car unattended are far more important than your gender when it comes to risk. Insurance companies use gender as a lazy way of guessing those things. (Of course if they could show that there was very little variation within the large groups e.g. 99% of men aged 18-25 make a claim for £2000 then this would be justifiable, but they can't. Safe male drivers get lumped in with unsafe male drivers - this is discrimination.)

>How about me, I pay more for health insurance than a twenty year old. Should I complain and get a refund for the last 30+ years of private health insurance?

Are you more or less healthy than a twenty year old. A large group of twenty year olds may be, on average, healthier than a large group of your peers (don't know how old you are). But if you are a healthy 50 year old (say) in peak fitness, eating the right things, doing exercise and no history of medical problems and you pay more than a twenty year old obese diabetic who eats nothing but cake and considers lifting your arm to grab the phone and dial 999 exercise, purely because of your age then yes this is discrimination.

Should you complain? Maybe, you could kick start the revolution in private health insurance, (although people are more worried as car insurance is mandatory where health insurance is optional)

>How about premium differentials within genders but by age? A younger driver pays more than an older driver. they pay more because they are a higher risk. Both of these drivers pay less than a very old driver. Again because they are a higher risk again.

Tricky because older age implies more experience (although not necessarily the case), which can tend to mean less mistakes (although many of these mistakes will not necessarily translate into accidents). However very old drivers (however you define that) can become unfit to drive. Obviously this is not always the case (and if I suggested it was no doubt I would get loads of old but competent people yelling at me!) I would assume age is discrimination but years driving is not. (One of my mates is a couple of years older than me and had a driving license five-ish years before me - he shows up as lower risk than me even though he doesn't own a car and hasn't driven since passing his test - typical, no but does show problems inherent in the system.) And when people 'get old' (what ever age that is) the only was to check if people are safe is to look at them as individuals not market segments but this means testing and assessments which people hate (or involve every car having a big brother black box or such like).

I suspect this will be addressed some point soon by the courts, but the current case is only looking at gender discrimination.

>None of these decisions are made on the basis of gender, they are all made purely on perceived risk for each person.

These decisions are made on perceived risk of a group of people to which the individual belongs, a big one of which is gender.

>All these complains and (if made) judgments will do is drive up the premiums for everybody. NOBODIES premiums will go down.

Source?

I presume some of the more dodgy insurers will do as you suggest but in the whole (and with the aid of comparison sites) I think in the short term women's insurance will go up and men's down slightly until insurers come up with a better, (hopefully) more accurate and non discriminating form of calculating risk.

>So well done whoever you were. You can be pleased with yourself that you took a working system and broke it. Well fucking done.

They took an example of discrimination prohibited by law and told them to stop breaking the law!

>Anyway, if there's a company called Sheila's Wheels purely for the girlies, why can't we have a Mike's Motors, or Clarkesons Cowboys for the boys? Gotta keep things equal dontchaknow.

Shelia's wheels provide quotes for men too, they are just stupidly high (because they are men - guess what discrimination is illegal!)

You could have opens up a Clarkson's Cowboys insurance for men, but if you group people into these larger groups, rather than treating them as individuals, then you would assume they are all high risk an still charge high rates.

re: let's shut it down for a week or two

let's shut down your job for a week or two

see if you can't get on with you live without worrying about money every second of the day.

maybe you would even find the time to be happy again.

Helpful guy

<sarcasm>

My girlfriend wants to replace here aging blackberry with an iPhone, but when she gets it I'm gonna flush it and replace it with something that is *almost* as good at meeting her requirements as the iPhone.

My status symbol is not having anything Apple. My head is so far up my arse I can't see anything odd with that!

</sarcasm>