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* Posts by Bruce MacDonald

9 publicly visible posts • joined 17 Dec 2009

Parliament misled over Climategate report, says MP

Bruce MacDonald
Flame

Get back to Lindsay Lohan ...

Here's a question for all of you out there, whether you are in the 'skeptic' camp or the 'hippie-tree-hugger' camp: What would it take for you to change your mind?

Seriously, what would it take? If you consider yourself a 'skeptic' (rather than a denialist) you are implicitly saying that you could be convinced but you haven't heard that convincing argument yet. Similarly, if you are in the tree-hugger camp, you could (presumably) be convinced if someone provided the appropriate scientific evidence.

To illustrate: someone much smarter than me once said he would be convinced of the falsity of evolution if anyone finds mammal fossils in the precambrian.

If you say that agw doesn't exist or won't be a problem or whatever, what would it take to convince you?

If you are convinced of agw etc, what evidence would it take to make you a non-believer?

Flame icon: open to interpretation.

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Ten Essential... Travel Speakers

Bruce MacDonald
Thumb Down

Gonna need a big travel case

You clowns have done it again!

If I've got my ten essential sets of travel speakers, I'll hardly have room for my laptop.

Surely you can see that the ten essential travel accessories, one of which is speakers, one of which is an external HDD etc makes more sense?

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Ten Essential... 500GB Portable Hard Drives

Bruce MacDonald
Reply Icon
FAIL

All ten are essential?

So evidently they're recommending we carry 5TB of portable storage in our pockets.

The usual story, evidently: started with a good idea (10 essential free PC apps etc) and spoiled it.

Not to el Reg: If you're going to list 10 essential things, they need to all perform different functions.

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Dell Latitude Z

Bruce MacDonald
WTF?

No compromises?

Erm, no compromises you said? 2 USB ports?

I was waiting for you to say "and another two on the other side" or something, but no ...

No compromises?

Then there's the price: 1800 quid? That's crazy money!

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Segway + motorbike = futuristic dorkmobile

Bruce MacDonald
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Zero emissions

Depends what your source of energy is: coal and nuclear stations can't ramp-up and ramp-down overnight when there is less demand (if they heat up or cool down too fast pipes will buckle and bend) so overnight when there is much less demand, they are still spinning away at full power. Use some of this unused power to charge your electric car/bike and I think you can safely say you're zero emissions.

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US couple jailed for TV shoplifting brag

Bruce MacDonald
Grenade

Sentencing

Why is it that women always get a lesser sentence. What did _he_ do that justified a sentence more than twice the length of hers? Sounds to me like they were in it together.

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Twitter bomb hoax man changes plea

Bruce MacDonald
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Grenade

Idiot?

What's he an idiot for? He didn't genuinely threaten anyone. By this I mean that the airport didn't treat it as a bomb threat.

If I say, and I'm bracing myself for the black helicopters as I do, that the whole police force need a damn good kick in the pants, it would be difficult to argue that I'm actually threatening to assault a police officer.

He made a 'joke' - hell, he made a comment to vent his frustration.

Legally it doesn't make a difference whether he sent it by email or twitter (the way the CPS wants to see things, as it's misuse of electronic communications or some such). So what if I said the same thing in a personal conversation using Skype? Illegal?

The whole thing is moronic, and yes, the police really do need a damn good kick in the pants.

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Bruce MacDonald

The legal angle ...

as the old saying goes, I'm not a lawyer, but ... here's someone who is, and has thought about it:

http://www.thelawyer.com/the-twitter-%E2%80%9Cbomb-hoax%E2%80%9D-case-worse-than-we-thought?/1003651.article

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'CRU cherrypicked Russian climate data', says Russian

Bruce MacDonald
Flame

Cherry picking

Newsflash: El Reg cherry-picks stories about cherry-picking. I've yet to see one about the dozens of examples of climate-change deniers cherry-picking results.

Go on, El Reg. I challenge you: Be honest. Just once.

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