Posts by Mike

Nuggets

Assuming that this *server* only had one copy of each movie/song/software then taking this server away removes one "seed" as most torrents have several seeds (sometimes over 100) it's not a big hit, I doubt anyone will notice, besides even if there were no seeds (people with complete copies) it's still possible to get the whole file if there's enough leaching (partial copies to make up the whole).

Pirate Bay by far has more torrents tracked than anywhere else, but when there are torrent amalgamation sites (which I won't list for obvious reasons) it's becomming less and less important, i.e. the data is distibuted, it's a tiny jump to distribute the torrents (a torrent, torrent).

If society would rather steal a product than buy it then it's not priced correctly, either a new product is required or how that product is delivered needs to be changed.

Nahhhh.....

Nice planes to see, but history is history, no reason to keep them flying, they are just money pits, besides, they aren't the most efficient aircraft in the world, they are deafening and chuck out fumes like there's no tomorrow (no tomorrow was oddly their intended purpose).

Vulcan 604 in the Falklands conflict was their swan song, the story should close there, possibly the greatest(? well over 3000 miles) conventional bombing runs ever made (at least at the time).

>>yes they do and it needs to be Blue Steel, not conventional. It's the only way to be sure.

Wouldn't fit, since the last aircraft flying were MRR and K.2 you'd need to convert back to B.2A

Great story, great history, but "give us money to keep it flying or we'll sell it to the americans" is just emotional blackmail - stick it in a UK museum, it was a waste of money getting it back in the air, and if I was cynical I suspect it was always the ultimate plan to sell it abroad anyway.

@Daniel, Red Snow was the warhead on a Yellow Sun bomb or on a Blue Steel missile (technically still a bomb) but there wasn't a Red Snow bomb.

Notwithstanding, no problem if private money wants to keep it flying, but not tax money, there's no benifit to society.

@James O'Brien

>>he went with his TRAINING to get the plane home

No, he didn't, he forgot the basics (the checklist being critical), 20 miles sounds like a lot but not when you're flying at several hunded knots, 400Mph/20Miles = 3 minutes, he obviously considered it worth the extra risk, he made this choice, if he had an extra 5 minutes of flying time he woud have got away with it (and avoided the two hours of paperwork and shuttle back to his base for taking his aircraft back to the "wrong" base, which might have been the real reason for trying to "get the plane home").

>>How the HELL do you expect someone strapped to a seat 15k feet high to hop out and check the oil?

He was fully aware the plane was faulty before he took off, pilots have full vito on the serviceability of every aircraft they fly, he decided to fly a faulty aircraft after alll it had been OK so far. Imagine, your car has the oil light on, you can stop, drive to the nearest garage or just keep driving as it hasn't caused a problem so far, what would you have done?

Notwithstanding, the problems are endemic, he takes amphetamines because he is required to, what kind of military requires this? His judgement was poor, maybe skewed by the drugs (many friendly fire killings are attributed to pilots using drugs), but as we know "I was only following orders" isn't really a get out of jail free card, there are so many things that could have given this a better outcome, he is responsible for a few of those things, but he is not alone in this.

Girl Scout cookies.....

Are they made with real Girl Scouts?

Anyway, they want to make a quick buck by shouting "privacy", a judge said "you're stupid" so now they are saying "it's for the little person", at the end of the day it's all about greed and more stupidity will make them less boring (but still stupid, greedy and hopefully poorer).

Americans have always done what they wanted

If Obama has full disclosure great! but it remains to be seen (but he gets my vote for the time being).

Americans have a shameful history of abuse against their own people (do you want a list? 120,000 japanese americans in WW2 sent to internment camps etc.) there have always been "laws" which seem to oppose the consitution (do you want a list?), but the sheeple of america want to believe they live in the "land of the free" so they don't let it worry them (ignorance is bliss) so you may find there's an undefinable backlash against his actions.

Normally.....

it's just the stupid greedy people who get 419'd and I have no sympathy for them because their greed takes away their common sense, but in this case she has my pity.

Re: Evolutionary Hard Times

<quote>For you very bright people that say CO2 causes rising temperatures, Intelligent Design is Creationism, and over the last 150 years Evolution has been proven. Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!</quote>

In order......

1. Rising global temperatures is in line with the amount of CO2, there is a huge amount of evidence for this (tree rings, ice cores) etc. it may be a mistake to say CO2 is a cause of warming (rather than an effect of it), but it doesn't change the evidence we can see

2. ID is not creationism, however, ID started from the creationist camp, both rely on a supernatural being (something outside nature)

3. Evolution has not been "proven", ah well here's the rub, how can you prove something which takes (hundreds of) thousands of years to observe? if I see footprints in the snow is this proof that someone walked in it? no, but it would be the best, most rational explanation.

You cannot prove evolution, but the body of evidence supporting it is overwhelming, and getting larger day by day, more importantly there is no evidence to contradict it, if one species turned into another species in one generation (two cats mated and gave birth to a dog), this would present a big problem for evolution.

As you are probably well aware there have been many, many attempts to contradict the theory of evolution, from feeble "why is the bannana so perfectly made for humans", through "how could the eye randomly appear" and on to bacterial flagella and irreducible complexity. All of which ended up supporting the theory of evolution not contradicting it.

Lions and tigers can interbreed, which means that they are either the same type or have not diverged to such an extent that they are biologically incompatible, but they are pretty close to being incompatible often sterile or still born, it's well known that horses and donkeys produce mules (almost always sterile), these are species diverging - but we won't be able to say for sure unless we see completely incompatible animals produced, this will take (potentially) millions of years, humans can't mate with chimps because of this divergence, humans have one less pair of chromosones, but a common ancestor could be close enough to humans and chimps to mate with both, the fossil record supports this possibility - and again no evidence contradicts it.

The footprints are in the snow, either you believe that someone walked in it or god put the footsteps there "to test our faith".

Vrooooooooom

>>At least desirable to those of us who fancy the idea of a twit-proof twist-and-go super bike

twit-proof? I'm glad that this bike will also make sure you have correct balance, observation, braking distance estimation, appropriate speed use etc. etc.

If my CBR1100 was automatic I'd no longer risk being a twit I guess? a superbike is a superbike, you're just as small and vulnerable regardless of the fuel used.

It's only notable because

The guy was a kid, if he was a 50 something year old I don't think that anyone would consider his sentence harsh.

PS. @Andy Worth

>>300 years does seem a little excessive but this guy deserves to go down.

Get your coat, you know why.

Pay attention

@halfcut

If you can't stop in the distance you can see then yuo are going too fast.

If you smooshed the family it would have been your fault and it could have been avoided by looking ahead rather than the 5m in front of you.

@Frank Russo

People are stupid and think that glancing down to text for 5 seconds or so is OK, it's not, the woman is going to suffer forever with guilt (if she's vaguely human), prison is not for her - it's a punishment to show the victims familiy that someone cares about their loss and a deterrent for others.

No amount of restitution will bring her victim back, and no amount of rehabilitation will prevent others doing what she did.

@3 years driving ban?

Yes... 2 years 9 months for the second drinking and driving offence is more than fair, in fact as you've shown complete disregard for the law twice, the liklyhood is that you'll do it again, personally I'd give you a much longer ban (and a third strike would mean no licence ever again).

Punishment should be about prevention, you can;t fix a crime that has happened - your previous punishment had no effect, so you should be nailed to the wall, you have no excuse for the second time.

She got a 3 year ban, this is not long enough, and depending on the status of the current law the 3 year ban may start immediately, rather than when she gets out of prison, so it really could only be a few months ban (the law is changing to make bans start after any prison sentence).

Philippa is unlikely to kill someone else while texting, but if she does (or anything like it) then let's hope the law take a very dim view of her, she made one stupid, fatal, irrepairable mistake, some would say that you are the bigger criminal (you were just luckier and didn't kill anyone either time).

btw. when I was 9 my best friend (also 9) was killed on the way to school by a drunk driver, so AC maybe you got away with much more than just a light ban.

@Dunstan Vavasour

>>I still think the chances of Iran managing to make any sort of fission bomb, let alone H-bomb, which actually goes bang are about zero.

I probably couln't make a gun, but doesn't mean I couln't get one.

Re: @Mike

>>I can imagine the survival situation you were in... "damn, stranded in Tokyo, all there is to eat is Fugu".

Picky picky, I said "if you are planning to eat something that you are unsure of the safety of it", the whole point of the article was that the poisonees were sure of the safety (as everybody else who eats Fugu would normally be), besides, I didn't order it and I wasn't told what it was before I ate it, probably another reason why I'm non-plused about Fugu.

It's not like someone with a peanut allergy playing russian roulette with a bag of revels (when they used to have peanuts in them that is... sigh)

Re: Texas Uni?

>>Simply referring to Texas Uni is just not sufficient, pardner.

Nobody actually cares, pardner.

@Mark

Islamic law (sharia) is unequivocal, if you leave Islam you should be put to death.

It's irrelevant that some interpret the Quran differently.

@The Fuzzy Wotnot

>>Don't give me all that cack about "Well Windows is so widely used it is obviously going to get attacked!". Let give you a one word argument to that old cods, APACHE.

>>Apache runs 70%+ of the worlds web servers and it manages to stay ahead of the game and not get infected, while IIS lags behind and is always under attack.

Have a look at the vulnerbilities against 1.3/2.0/2.1/2.2 on the apache.org site - remember these are only the ones that have actually been fixed!

Some of the highest profile web page defacements and root compromises have been due to Apache not patched to the latest level (and there are also zero day hacks too), which is actually a perfect example of when something becomes popular it gets attacked, so I guess your one word argument actually is more valid round the other way.

The other thing to note that if a server has Apache, you don't know what distro (or even OS) is behind it, could be windows, could be Solaris/Linux and a whole host* of others, otoh if a server has IIS, likely it's Windows on x86 so any compromise is far more likely to be predictable.

*host.... gedit?

@Mark

>Well what IS wrong with it?

A 15 year old girl giving a 17 year old boy a blowjob is defacto wrong, both under the old laws of Georgia and the new laws of Georgia, the prosecutor wanted him to admit that that, then the prosecutor was prepared to "set aside" the verdict, Georgia is where the offense was committed, he was found guilty under the laws of the land which he broke.

Now, if you're asking my personal opinion if a 15 year old girl giving a 17 year old boy a blowjob and videoing it is OK or not (regardless the laws of the land), how would I know? she insists that she wasn't coerced, taken at face value, I don't see it as a big deal, if I was Wilson then I guess I'd be making a right/wrong value judgement and (assuming I was aware of the law) balancing the risks, I doubt I'd do it, with hindsight I guess he wouldn't do it either.

Now, don't forget, the law has changed in Georgia, the same circumstances would not result in being defined as a sex offender anymore, it's just sex between minors, a misdemeanor.

If we disregard the laws of the land, I think there is still something wrong about a group of pre consensual kids getting drunk and having/videoing multiple partner sex in a hotel room (I won't speculate who bought the booze or booked the room and got the camera) if you don't draw the line somewhere, where does it end? if 15 is OK, what about nearly 15? 14? 13? 12? the UK draws a line at 16 and has a reasonable flexibility written into the law between 14 and 16, Georgia doesn't.

@Joe K

You sir are either a nugget, or a genius.

The fundamental problem is that if salaries rise faster than inflation the money is devalued, I would hazzard a guess that most people reading this, over the last few years have had above inflation pay rises, and why not? you want to get on, progress, advance, but where does this money come from? the answer is people spending money, but it's a pyramid scheme, the more you get, the more you spend, the more investments like houses and banks have "theoretical values" that don't match their real values, and so on until breaking point and the tip of the pyramid is found, down comes the pyramid.

The smart money pulled out of virtual investments into fixed resource investments (like gold) over a year ago, this won't stop the crash (nothing can) but it protected the few while they ride the storm.

So "nugget" I think. Although you have a good point about savings (for the wrong reason), anyone saving money will see the value of their cash decrease, and no amount of cash in a 6% savings account will make up for the decrease in value while the crash revalues everything.

Either....

Stupid and greedy = lesson learnt (and it's a lesson to us all)

or

Clever and greedy = he scammed his family (any proof the scammers existed?)

If he genuinely thought the money was legit and was planning to spend it altruistically then I guess greed may not have been a motive, in which case he and his family get my sympathy (but Mr Occam is smiling with a very Sweeny Todd smile).

@Mark

<quote>Why is this a story? My 16 year old daughter averages over 20,000 text a month. Our november bill has 23,380 outgoing text and the December bill has 24,060 outgoing text. when we took her phone into Verizon the guy behind the counter said that he had never seen that many text. Even with all this texting she maintains her grades and plays sports. But I'm glad we have unlimited texting because I wouldn't want to have to pay for the text.</quote>

Rough estimate, it's 1 text sent a minute (8 hours weekdays/16hours weekends), she's 16? so she's at school? unless she's sending the same text to her entire phonebook she has a problem, by the sound of it she's not engaging with you at home, so you have communication issues, what else isn't she telling you? are you sure she's getting good grades? you say "WE have unlimited texting" so she doesn't pay the bill anyway? No financial responsibility and doesn't communicate with you? does she drink, do drugs? would you know? fostering a compulsive character like this is very dangerous (and at 16 it's probably too late to do anything about it), you seem to think that sending 20,000 texts is OK for no other reason than your daughter does it, therefore there can't be a problem, rather than accepting the fact that sending 20,000 texts a month might actually point to a problem.

FACT: Your daugter is sending an abnormal amount of texts, there is a reason for this, either she is "special" or she has a problem (you'd say "special", 99.9% of the population may think otherwise)

Why isn't everybody laughing?

Advertisers complaining that too many people are interested and clicking on their adverts? it's pay per click ffs, if it was pay per view then they could complain!

>Kill all ads? Excellent plan. You'll give me and my colleagues a job, then? Cool.

Sarah; I'd give you a job (insert salacious giggle), but would you work for 2p a "click"?

Northern Ireland

> "to replace the worlds use of avation fuel with algae biofuel would require a farm the size of northern ireland"

To those who thinks that this is simple, think again (or even just think once), firstly this assumes that you have got the highest yeild algae and the "enthusiastic estimates" are vaguely correct, they have yet to be proven over a small scale, secondly, NI isn't exactly small, you'd need methods of containing, harvesting, monitoring etc. who thinks that flooding the sahara is possible?

>Sometimes, I despair of the mindless criticism of human ingenuity and this on an IT site.

Who said I was criticising? I think it's worth doing, you can't do anything without mindfully identifying the obsticles first, for example why not give give Australia back to the original inhabitants, I know they messed it up in Africa but maybe Australians should learn from their mistakes when giving the land back to the rightful owners perhaps?

Re: Moon was done w completely non existant tech

>the moon shots were done in 10 years starting from nothing.

Really? no rocket tech? no life support systems? in fact there was a huge amount of technology back to the 30s directly used on the moon missions, the "from nothing to the moon in 10 years" thing is just american propaganda (in fact a lot of german military tech was used when their scientists defected for an easy life after WW2).

Definitely not discounting VASIMR, it's the only viable option at the moment, but let's not forget the low acceleration, even at the best possible estimates a low mass (1000Kg) craft could take less than 40 days (with a big 200Mw engine), but that's one way and not decelerating, as soon as you up the mass (for living quarters and supplies) it slows down significantly, with a smaller power source and assuming you want to pause at Mars and come back again (rather than go whizzing past) you're still talking several months.

>Yes it would have radioactive decay generator onboard, no big deal.

Nope, it's a big deal, how do you get rid of waste heat in space without convection or conduction? radiation is the only option, so large radiation panels are required, that's if nuke power is "allowed" in space.

Don't forget VASIMR is actually an old technology (25 years) that is only now becoming possible, it will be years before a probe uses it (probably to Mars), even it, at maximum theoretical speeds couldn't reach alpha centauri (our closest other star system) within 4000 years, even breaking the known laws of physics and traveling at light speed would take over 4 years and that's to a system that we don't think is habitable.

So let's pretend that a Mars mission is possible within 30 years, with huge resources and multi-governmental input, let's also pretend that the craft could keep people alive for a few months, possible? OK, possible, but not probable, but even if this very unlikely set of events did happen what is the point? spending billions (trillions?) of dollars to send people to dead planets, spend the money on unmanned craft and AI systems you'll get so much more for your money, go further, get there sooner and find out more.

@Philip Kroker

You said "the little war happening in Gaza at the moment has precious little to do with religion"

but then went on to say

You said "After WWII the Jews were given a piece of historic Israel back and the Palestinians living there didn't like that."

What about the Balfour Declaration and UN Resolution 181 (II) of 1947 which would indicate that (regardless of birthplace) a Jewish person has a "National Home" in Palestine, this is land ownership defined by religion.

If there were no differences of religion there would be no border, don't dress it up as a "political problem", as for northern ireland, it wasn't a british/irish political argument, hell, different streets couldn't mix if they worshiped the same god in slightly different ways.