Posts by Graham Marsden
4079 posts • joined Friday 19th January 2007 17:59 GMT
Page:
@Gerhard Mack
PR in the form of Single Transferrable Vote is quite as good as you think, in all those close races where the winning majority was less than the number of votes cast for other candidates, instead of all those other votes being thrown away, those voters' second choice candidate get the votes until someone gets a proper majority.
It works well in places like the Republic of Ireland and Denmark, it could work here too if people would let it.
"it seems perhaps a little odd...
"... that NASA bothered to carry out today's test at all."
Not at all.
If they'd built the thing, it would have been odd (if not stupid) not to test the thing since even if it isn't going to be used *right now* it provides valuable data and proof of concept which may be usable in the future.
Posted in Met issues internet cafe terror warnings
Insert obligatory...
"Vote Fascist for a Third Glorious Decade of Total Law Enforcement!"
"Be a Government Informer. Betray Your Family & Friends. Fabulous Prizes to be Won!"
Posted in Labour manifesto changes a byte bit
Citizen Collier...
You are guilty of doubleplusungood crimethink! Stay where you are, the Thought Police will be there to unperson you shortly.
if we were able to pick the parties that we didn't want
That's known as Single Transferrable Vote where you rank parties in order of preference...
... hey, isn't that PR which the Lib Dems are in favour of...?!
A solution to let you write down your PIN safely...
There is a system used by (I think) some banks in Denmark where the customer is given a 9x9 grid (like an empty Sudoku board) with different colours in the individual squares.
You write your PIN in a way that you will be able to remember, eg the four corners reading clockwise or the four blue squares across the bottom row or the rightmost four squares on the middle row etc, then fill in all the other squares with the numbers 1-9.
This hides your number in plain sight because only you know which four squares are the real ones.
Banks could print these grids out for pennies and save everyone a lot of hassle.
Why would anybody need to write down a four digit number to remember it?
Because just maybe not everyone finds numbers easy to remember.
Why would anyone not consider that others may not find such things as simple as they do...?
Posted in Labour manifesto changes a byte bit
Re: I've seen El Reg go back and fix typos before.
Yes, but El Reg tends to actually *SAY* when they've edited an article if it makes a substantive change to what went before (which isn't the same as "fixing a typo")
Posted in Judge de-ASBOes yoof's low-slung kecks
What about "Whale Tail"?
Is someone now going to try to pass ASBOs on all those young ladies who wear short tops and then pull their thong up so it's visible above the waistband of their skirts???
Who are we going to nuke in retaliation??
Ignoring the ridiculous Tabloidesque anti-Lib Dem rhetoric that sounds more like something from the Murdoch Press, would Lewis Page care to tell us *who* is likely to try to lob an ICBM at the UK and *which* cities (and their millions of civilians) we are going to oblitterate in our "nation wrecking" retaliation?
In case it has escaped his notice, the Cold War has ended, so it's very unlikely that any country that actually has the ability to launch an ICBM strike on the UK *would* do so and the so-called "rogue states" like Iran or North Korea know damn well that don't have enough bombs to stop the rest of the world dropping on them like a ton of bricks if they did start lobbing nukes around.
A more likely scenario might be to put a nuke (or a dirty bomb) on a boat and sail it up the Thames, but then who do we lob a missile at in payback?
As for Space Travel, I'm all for it, but perhaps we'd better fix the big hole in the bottom of the boat before we start re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic...
Of course...
... it's always one rule for them and another for everyone else.
All your IP Addreses...
... are belong to EU...
Dropped a clanger?
... Err, I think you mean Clangers...!
What is wrong with this...
... is that you are being suckered by the Police who are the ones conflating separate issues.
They want you to think that "oh, he had indecent images of children, so that justifies them misusing other laws and stretching them way beyond any legitimate bounds simply to give them a better chance of getting a conviction".
They are trying to create an association in people's minds between child porn and "extreme writings" such that they're allowed to act as the Thought Police and get laws banning anything they don't like, even when there is *NO* evidence of harm at all.
As for "freedom of speech is a good issue to right about, but only when it involves consenting adults", what about non-consenting adults? What about all those people who are killed, raped and so on in many books and films? They clearly don't consent, so should any such writings be made illegal...?
Posted in Murdoch newswire sues over 'hot news'
"verified by other news outlets at significant expense"
If that were actually the situation, they might have a case, but in these days of 24 hour rolling news, instead what we have is "publish or broadcast first and *then* check to see if the facts are correct" because the important thing is being "first with the story" even if it isn't accurate...
Here come the Thought Police (again!)
Despite the failure of the attempt by Baroness O'Caithan to introduce an "Extreme Writings" provision into English Law, it seems that Kent Police are trying to bring one in by default by suggesting that an online chat counts as "publishing"!
Of course they will probably decide to claim that this is a "loophole" in existing legislation and we'll then see some politician who's heading for defeat jump onto the bandwagon to help generate some positive headlines because "well, it's For The Children, isn't it?" and anyone who disagrees is obviously not "Thinking of the Children!"
What's next? Banning Viktor Nabakov's "Lolita"??
"smed-prop"? Or...
... "smed-prep"?
(At least it wasn't "Smeg Head!")
Very interesting... but stupid!
You bet your Blippy!
(With apologies to Rowan and Martin ;-) )
Microsoft wins in court...
... but the company it vanquished plans to fight back.
Oh the irony!!!
Posted in Nazi soldiers pose for Red Army calendar
Did they...
... get the pictures from Wikipedia articles?
Posted in Sun sat sends stunning solar snap
Wonder who their ISP is?
And will they start throttling the bit-stream...?
Posted in Cameron promises yet more Avatar
And I thought...
... this would be "Call me Dave" painting himself blue to prove what a good Tory he is!
"If we stop now you've wasted all the capital investment"
In other words, as many people have been saying all along, Labour have bulled ahead with this project so that, having spent huge amounts of public money, they can claim that anyone trying to cancel the project will be "wasting" that dosh.
Well, no, Mr Johnson, it is *YOU* who have wasted that money, it is *YOU* who have pissed it away on an unworkable control-freak project that has been doomed to failure from the start, don't start trying to put the blame on others now.
And so the second guessing starts...
... as someone with an axe to grind sticks his two-pennorth in.
If you'd prefer to vote for policies, rather than a party...
Take a look at http://voteforpolicies.org.uk/ and see which of the policy sets there appeals most to your views.
(NB I'd strongly recommend clicking on the "Show more policy points from this set" because there are some nasty ones hidden below the "headline" policies")
Highly evil...?
'Which part of "Mwahahahaaa!!!" didn't you understand?'
But...
... does it know the difference between a power socket and a computer terminal?
"before the age of 95"?
So how much statistical data do they have for women contracting breast cancer *after* the age of 95...?
Dear parents,
If your kids are doing this...
... where the FUCK are you???
Try taking some responsibility for your kids' safety!
Yours sincerely,
Someone who knows that the net is not a child-minding service!
Posted in Memristors can maybe learn like synapses
On the contrary...
... cats are smart enough to know that their human owne^H^H^H^H slaves are useful enough to keep around to feed them, empty the litter tray, stroke them and so on.
They're also smart enough not to let on that they already rule the world...!
Posted in MS kernel patch skirts infected machines
As the old tagline had it...
Error 606: Lazy programer
"16 constituencies short of an overall majority"
Is that like "a sandwich short of a picnic"?
I've just done a google search
for NeoGhostz...
So now...
... pictures of consenting adults engaged in consensual activities will be covered under the same remit as:
Forced Prostitution and the violence and forced drug addiction that may be involved;
Violence at music events;
Money laundering through dodgy casinos;
And the use of fake ID documents.
Nice to see that they're going to be targetting specialist resources effectively on relevant and related areas...!
Extreme Porn is vague and ill defined...
... but the law that covers it is found in sections 63 - 68 of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act 2008 see http://www.uk-legislation.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts2008/pdf/ukpga_20080004_en.pdf
"like putting a burglar alarm inside your house"
And then not telling your children to lock the front door when they go out...
That depends...
... do you want to start requiring joggers and athletes to be licenced as well given that their CO2 output will be higher that everyone else's?
Forget the wash up...
... there should be a law against the Parliamentary Guillotine which allows the Government to set a ridiculously short amount of time for *any* Bill to be discussed in the Commons, hence why the Dangerous Pictures provisions of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act were only ever debated in the Lords.
Oh gods, not again...
1) Road Tax was discontinued after WWII, you now pay "Vehicle Excise Duty", ie taxed on your ownership of a vehicle.
2) Said ownership is based, now, on the amount of pollution a vehicle causes. How much pollution does a bicycle put out?
3) The administration of such a scheme would cost much more than any revenue generated unless bikes paid similar amounts of VED as other vehicles, even though they cause less pollution and less damage to the roads and take up less space as well.
4) etc etc etc in response to a tired old argument...
Lost way...
Oh dear, once again we get the "some cyclists are idiots, so we don't need to respect *any* of them argument"
Yes, I agree, speaking as a cyclist, there are some pillocks who give the rest of us a bad name, but that's no excuse for ridiculous cycle routes that were designed by people who don't understand that if you have to keep stopping and starting (and even dismounting if you go by the silly signs!) you are wasting energy.
It's then not simply a matter of putting your foot on the gas, it's putting your foot on the pedal and having to recover momentum that you lost due to a badly designed route which is mostly intended to keep bikes out of the way of cars, rather than actually be any use to the cyclist!
he could have been tried, convicted, done his time and been out by now.
Or he could have tried for a minor offence in this country and got a slap on the wrist or tried for a trumped up serious offence in the USA and locked up for years.
The anti-slashdot effect...?
The slashdot effect makes sites slow to respond because of the number of people visiting them.
So will this new nonsense from google mean that such sites will suddenly disappear off the search listings because they're too popular...???
Posted in eBay trumps Tiffany in trade mark ruling
Tower Bridge? Marble Arch??
Yours must be fakes, because I'm selling those next week...!
Posted in CEOP renews attack on Facebook
Same old Same Old...
... from Gamble who wants to expand his ego-trip online empire a bit more and is resorting to ridiculous "if you don't agree with me you agree with paedos and rapists and murderers oh my!" accusations to try to get his way.
Epic Fail.
Posted in eBay trumps Tiffany in trade mark ruling
Who is dumb enough...
... to buy Tiffany Jewellery (let alone luxury cars or aeroplanes) from an online tat bazaar and *not* wonder whether they're getting the genuine article or going to get ripped off?
Whoever they are, I'd like to offer them Nelson's Column which I have for sale...
So what, exactly, is their problem?
UKIP claim to be "Libertarian", yet when it comes to a little bit of what turns out to be consensual sex games, they suddenly throw their hands up in the air and reveal themselves to be just another bunch of control-freak hypocrites...
Desperate vote grabbing...
Now that Gordon Clown realises he's screwed, this is just damage limitation, "promising" stuff that he's got no chance of delivering in the hope that the public will be confused enough to not give him the good kicking he desperately deserves.
Meanwhile "Call me Dave" Cameron is pandering to the Daily Fail reading public by trying to bring back National Service but hoping to con people by putting the word "Citizen" in the middle as if that makes a difference.
A pox on both their houses.
