Re: You takes your chances..........

@Mark, let's say you bump my elbow and spill my pint down the pub. You admit it was your fault and offer to buy me a replacement pint. I turn this offer down, and get Carter-Fuck solicitors to sue you, dragging you through the courts. The court then awards me the price of my pint. Are you saying that you should also be liable for my legal costs?

These are civil cases, not criminal cases. There's a big difference. They have admitted 'culpability' simply by offering to settle.

Re: You takes your chances..........

The law sounds fair enough to me. If someone takes you to court but you then offer to settle out of court, then if that offer is rejected, and then if the court awards an amount lower than the settlement offer, why should you have to pay the the costs of the court case? You already made a fair offer which would have avoided those costs had the offer been accepted. If you had to pay the costs no matter what, then anyone and everyone would be prey for vexatious litigants. Of course, if the court awards more than the offer, it is clear that costs can be payable, as is provided for in law.

Re: "Human penis are bigger than the great apes."

Humans are the only primates without a baculum, or penis bone.

"The popular science writer Richard Dawkins ...speculated in 2006 that the loss of the bone in humans, when it is present in our nearest related species the chimpanzee, is a result of sexual selection by females looking for honest signals of good health in prospective mates. The reliance of the human penis solely on hydraulic means to achieve a rigid state makes it particularly vulnerable to blood pressure variation. Poor erectile function betrays not only physical states such as diabetes and neurological disorders but mental states such as stress and depression."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baculum#Absence_in_humans

Re: Springfield, Florida

FWIW, organisms' reproductive systems seem to be pretty resistant to radiation.

"Birth defects among the children of atomic-bomb survivors (1948-1954)

No statistically significant increase in major birth defects or other untoward pregnancy outcomes was seen among children of survivors. "

http://www.rerf.jp/radefx/genetics_e/birthdef.html

Re: He's very good...

@Tyrion. You might like to try this, I found it interesting. YMMV!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fry%27s_Planet_Word

Re: MY shed includes ELECTRO-magnets.

Make the heating coil the electro-magnet?

Re: @Silverburn (Wot, no Avatar?)

Dark Star.

"Let's have some music in here, Boiler."

Re: Ironic

Talking of blind, be a good chap and fuck off and read The Blind Watchmaker. Thanks very much.

Or try a God book. Jer. 5:21 (King James version): "Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not."

Even God tells you there are none so blind as will not see. If you do a bit of looking at the evidence, and you'll _see_ there's no need for faith.

P.s. Sorry for feeding the troll.

Re: @Gareth

@FB, your post reminded me of this. So, to be technically correct, the best kind of correct, it's a Van de Graaff generator. However, your spelling is better than Peter Hammill's, who named his band Van der Graaf Generator, which was also an accidental misspelling. Ah, the majesty of prog rock!

@Gareth

Indeed the charge carriers here are electrons, and are negatively charged. However, it's still OK to talk about transferring charge, both positive and negative. A positively charged body can be thought of as a deficit of electrons relative to some other object. Whatever, I gave up on the physics of the article after:-

"while flowers, which are grounded, have a negative charge"

The ground is the reference point of an electrical system, and so doesn't have any charge per se, by convention it's at a potential of zero volts. The ground can sink and source charge, but it doesn't make sense to say a grounded object has 'negative charge'.

Paris. She's been charged more than once.

Re: Off the net

Electrified copper cages won't work. Faraday shields and all that!

Re: Paedoware

I agree that capital punishment is going too far. Perhaps a stairwell nonce bashing would suffice. Especially if they're left quadrospazzed on a life-glug.

They don't need punishment, they need gunishment.

Re: @LarsG

Please ignore LarsG. This person consistently replies to the first post in a thread, even though the post made has nothing to do with the OP, presumably to ensure this crap gets listed higher up the page.

Re: Mmm, contibutor name looks well dodgy

Concocktion?

Re: Yawn

+1

There's too much of this shite creeping into articles on the Register.

Redmond instead of Microsoft, Cupertino instead of Apple. Aren't we clever knowing where a company is headquartered? No, you're not.

Then there's 'bird' instead of satellite. It's not big and it's not clever. It's lazy cliched journalism which detracts from the reporting.

Reminds me of Paul Henry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLqZP31upTw

The Kiwi breakfast news guy corpsing. Towards the end of the clip, a viewer has emailed in saying something like:- "Isn't it great how the Japanese find all these fantastic creatures under the sea, and then kill them." "Yes, they're always bludgeoning something to death".

Sorry, IGMC.

Re: sue lawley!! sue lawley!! :)

Yes, it's by Sting. The actual lyrics are:-

Salami. Salami.

Re: So, presumably

@Martin, agreed. It's like the Japanese crabs that resemble Samurai warriors. Carl Sagan reckoned that's another example of selection, as Heikegani crabs that look like Samurai get thrown back in the sea! (This may or may not be true.) Anyway, here's some classic "Cosmos"!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hy0Bimyus4

Re: The sad part is ...

@AC

You are, of course, technically correct. (The best kind of correct). I hope that Mr. Carlin decided that "Think of how stupid the median person is" didn't scan very well!

Re: The sad part is ...

"common sense ... turns out to be not as common as you would hope"

As George Carlin said, “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.”

Re: Technology advances

"Standing on the Shoulders of Giants"

The story goes that Newton only said that because Robert Hooke wasn't the tallest of men. Apparently, Newton took umbrage at Hooke's criticisms of his work. Who knows?!

Re: Hippies?

Yeah, OK, the chemicals _might_ have some small as yet unidentified risk. But for absolute definite we all live longer and healthier lives by utilising cheap fossil fuels.

That's why they have to crash these things.

We don't want to hit the Iron Chicken with space junk.

Re: Hippies?

@localzuk.

"The chemicals in the fracking fluid are unknown,"

Untrue. There you go:-

http://www.cuadrillaresources.com/what-we-do/hydraulic-fracturing/fracturing-fluid/

Re: GATACA

"why not just sequence everybody at birth and get rid of people with an IQ of <100 and any genetic defect?"

If you were smart enough, you'd know that an IQ of 100 is supposed to be average intelligence, by definition. If you start bumping off folks with an IQ less than 100, the average intelligence will increase, so the IQ of 100 will correspond to a higher level of intelligence. Eventually, there will be only one person left. The cleverest one.

Re: unless you learn to live with a colder house, you spend more money on your heating

@Andrew Jones. Have you looked at an air sourced heat pump? You can fit it into your current heating system. Their COP is more than 3.5 (3.5kW heat output for 1kW electrical power) when the outside temperature is more than 7C. On days when it's very cold, which I guess you get a few of in the Borders, it's probably best to use oil fired or maybe a wood burner or whatever, but for a lot of the year it's certainly more efficient than burning the electricity in light bulbs!

Re: hum from the fluorescent tubes?

It's really easy to retrofit electronic ballasts to existing fitting. I did it because our supply in the sticks isn't that stiff, and the lights would take an age to click on on cold winter days when the neighbours had their convection oven going. Go on eBay and search for electronic ballasts. They work great, the light comes on within 0.5 seconds, the tubes last longer, they're silent, the tube efficacy is better (more lumens) with the high frequency, there's no flicker, and they use about 20% less power.

http://www.lrc.rpi.edu/programs/NLPIP/PDF/VIEW/SREB2.pdf

Re: Halogens don't like dimmers

The utilities companies don't like it if you take DC out of the mains. One bulb obviously isn't enough to cause problems, but If enough folks did it, the utility company's transformers would saturate. Of course, I'm sure you always used two bulbs with the diodes feeding each one alternately. Whatever, triacs are cheap.

Re: Not actually him, I heard

Indeed.

http://www.whoismcafee.com/i-am-safe/

Re: No life on Mars?

Agreed. That's even worse than 'San Fran'. If you're local it's 'The City', otherwise it's 'San Francisco'.

Re: Dark Star?

Anything that can destroy a whole planet has got to qualify for badassness! Thermostellar Bomb #20 gets my vote.

Re: Look at it this way...

@Peyton. To be fair to the Soviets, Tsar Bomba had a yield of about double that of the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami and about a quarter of the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa. And that's only because they reduced the bomb's yield by 50% to stop it blasting the drop aircraft out of the sky!

Re: I find it deeply disturbing

Right, it's a much better idea to nuke the shit out of Bikini Atoll. What's that? Castle Bravo yielded 15 megatons? You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!