Posts by Allan George Dyer

Re: Aiming Error

@AC - Are you sure the Chinese wanted an early takeover of HK? If they were impatient, they could have turned off the water supply and walked in any time fromthe '60s. AFAIK, the issue was brought up because local businesses wanted assurance about land leases when Britain's 99 year lease on the "New Territories" ran out.

Re: Next question...

Yes, with a special emphasis on discrimination against motherhood. It can be seen in many of the comments here, where changing jobs from paid employment to pregnant is described as "leaving work". In our past, childbearing has been a very dangerous occupation, modern medicine (handwashing) has improved this but it is still not without risk. If you love your job, it doesn't make it any less deserving of pay; parents are making a long-term investment for Society.

Doing something about it is complicated, involving a fine line between overpopulation and rising retirement ages.

Re: How can you trust...

@Dazed and Confused - You're thinking of Ken Thompson's "Reflections on Trusting Trust", https://www.ece.cmu.edu/~ganger/712.fall02/papers/p761-thompson.pdf

but apparently there's a fix for that by David A. Wheeler, http://www.acsa-admin.org/2005/abstracts/47.html

Re: Another mess up with the DVLA paperless scheme....

"only country silly enough to obsess over personalised number plates"

Hong Kong is also keen on them. The plate "1" is reserved for the Commissioner of Police, and "1 L0VE U" was sold at auction for HK$1.4m.

Knew?

Knew that it was technically possible, yes, but had proof, no. Suspected that it was going on, yes, but the scale of the indiscriminate slurping was a big surprise. Or am I one of the clueless?

Re: Mag-safe

You mean the ones where the cable fails from the bending whenever it is pulled off, so that you have to buy another overpriced power adapter?

Re: The Nightmare

@Charles 9 - Taken to the extreme, this omnipotent God has created everything, including my current thoughts, and memories of my past joy and pain, and so already knows the result of the trials inflicted on me. Backing off from that a bit, this omnipotent God created a parasitic worm that made many generations of children blind, presumably so that, once we developed modern medicine, some doctors would have the opportunity to create a cure, don't worry about all those suffering children of earlier generations. Whichever way you look at it, this God created a lot of suffering; couldn't this omnipotent God have thought up some better way? This God is an omnipotent sadist, and certainly not the kind of intelligence we should revere or worship.

Re: Next challenge

No, no, no... you can't do that with the antikythera mechanism, but it will tell you when high tide will be and how soon to plant your wheat on the day the 1401 finishes*.

* Warning: results may be inaccurate if the optional "Sun explosion and Heat Death of the Universe" module has not been installed.

Suckling pig is a popular dish in Hong Kong too, often served at celebrations, business openings etc. Quite impressive when a dozen waiters bring in one with flashing red eyes for each table.

Re: Utopias?

@glen waverley - "Oz is much better than the old country" But isn't that because of the climate, beaches and cute animals?

@Remy Redert - So you're saying that, in the event of a cut, there will be ~50km of elevator cable hitting a major transport hub at terminal velocity? OK, not a dinosaur killer, but a hell of a lot more than a broken fingernail, probably dozens of deaths and enough public outcry to shutdown the orbital elevator industry for decades.

Re: No contradiction

Well, Wallace did rather undermine LabMD's claim ("we were framed") by his evidence that the data LabMD should have been keeping safe was open to anyone who tried to access it with LimeWire. However, that doesn't let Tiversa off the hook - they lied, changing "this data is open for anyone to steal" into "this data has already been stolen" and demanded a fee, grassing on LabMD when they didn't get it. That is perilously close to blackmail.

Re: Disconnect China.

Sure, break off contact with the world's second largest economy, but first find someone else to build your electronic equipment.

Take gun, aim at foot...

Re: Reminds me of the classic

I think the long stand is an acceptable alternative. Not to mention the metric adjustable spanner, tartan cotton and red-and-white striped paint.

Re: Taser Axon body-worn cameras.

Beat me to it, have an upvote. It's the generic trademark problem.

I am curious about the axon part... does it connect directly to the wearer's central nervous system? Ouch!

Sorry, messed up there, I was trying to reply to h4rm0ny.

But, to answer my own question, 26 pages, many seemingly a typo in 'biased'.