Posts by Mad Mike

Britain........humour.........judges........

Doesn't really compute. Strangely enough, the man from the community speed trap gave the best answer. All really rather fully and nothing to get worries over. Everyone else screaming paedo and generally going into headless chicken mode. Do they really believe children haven't seen naked people before and do they really believe bringing them up in such a repressive way is good for them? My kids would kill themselves laughing and taking the p**s out of him.

Britain is really going backwards.

Yeah....right

Whilst I don't disagree with the point or pointlessness of jamming mobile phone signals, if you believe a simple thing like the law will stand in the way, you're sadly mistaken.

The police and government (including various state bodies) break the law all the time and generally get away with it. Always have done and always will. The argument that jamming mobile phone signals is against the law is not sufficient reason to stop them. However, to be fair, most of the time, they just tell the mobile phone companies to turn the transmitters off rather than mess around tryign to jam them!!

They still haven't worked it out yet.......

The various industries affected (mainly music and films etc.) and the government (various over time) still haven't got it. No matter what they do, they will never stamp out copyright theft unless they tackle one fundamental issue. People will find ways round any measures they put in place to try and stop it. The genie is out the bottle. All the evidence suggests the major industries/companies being impected by this are those who have ridden roughshod over the consumer and been taking the p**s for years. Evidence shows that most people are quite willing to pay for content provided it is a reasonable cost. That's why music, films and software (as in the major players) are the ones primarily affected. They want completely unreasonable costs for their works and therefore when an alternative came about, people went for it.

The only way to stop copyright theft (or a large proportion of it), is for these people to reduce their charges etc. to a reasonable level. Unfortunately for them, some of the copyright theft at the moment revolves around 'getting your own back', where people are getting their retribution for prior acts in now. Basically, unless they made the content free, it won't stop the theft. But, that's their problem and maybe they should invest some of their previous ill gotton profits into some payback.

Free and community software normally has an ability to pay a donation and money does come in. So, the idea that everybody wants everything for nothing is plain wrong.

Another area these industries and companies need to start addressing is their completely stupid claims of the size of the issue. If people can get something for nothing, they'll use it, but if they had to pay for it (even a modest amount), they probably wouldn't bother. So, all the illegal installs are not all lost money/profit. That's plain rubbish and makes the people claiming that look stupid as well.

A substantial number of people who use Microsoft Office at the moment would simply switch to OO or something similar if they started having to pay. After all, OO is fully compatible, does pretty much everything a home user could desire and costs nothing. So, Microsoft Office takeup at home would drop like a stone.

Roadmaps

The issue with Sparc is a decent roadmap. Sparc T has a roadmap and it's looking reasonable. It's also a technology people can believe in. It makes sense and you can see Oracle simply rolling out generation after generation and developing it into the future. The M class servers are another thing though. The roadmap is poor. The future is pretty unclear. It simply looks like a chip going nowhere. Everyone ran away from the Venus chip when in development. So, where's it going? Even if Fujitsu have bought into it, so what. The reality is that Oracle/Sun have no credable high end servers, especially for databases.

Oracle is relying on it's installed customer base and the time it will take them to move to something else to keep them on Sparc until they can come up with something sensible for the future. Unfrotunately, the future doesn't seem to be coming fast enough. Oracle has put the knife into Itanium, which is presumably part of a strategy to sun support Sparc. Now, I wouldn't say Sparc is in the same place as Itanium (which is basically dead), but it's mighty close. Unless Oracle can release something credible in the next 6 months, you'd have to be really brave to stay on that ship.

Every Music Player

Surely, the same must apply to every device that plays music or video or whatever. If you rip CDs for your MP3 player or DVDs to a media player, that's illegal as well. If you download some music from a central store and then simply move it to another device (say a MP3 player), that's illegal as well. The ASA seems to have single-handedly made the entire iPod etc.etc. group of devices illegal!! Perhaps now, someone will suit out the stupid copyright laws in this country and around the world.

Also, presumably every manufacturer of these types of device should now be prosecuted for producing these devices? Otherwise, they'll have to withdraw legal action against loads of people/companies for copyright breach?

Talk about selective implementation of a law!!

See you in court

There's a TV program on at the moment called 'See you in court' were celebrities (of all levels) explain why they've sued people. Lembit Opik (or whatever his name is) showed some real common sense when he explained why he would appear on Have I Got News For You and yet had a problem with a load of the reporting in the papers etc. Just after loosing his seat, he was on the show and took a huge amount of stick in what I thought was very good humour, and he went up in my opinion. He accepted this was absolutely fine as it was an entertainment show and its nature was obvious and well known. Therefore, by appearing he asked for it and nobody really took it seriously.

However, he explained that the articles in papers which were quite vicious were done from an entirely different angle and therefore were not acceptable. Of course, in his case, the courts largely agreed.

So, with Tesla, they have effectively appeared on the motoring equivalent of Have I Got News For You and are not complaining!! Seems like an open and shut case of stupidity to me. The Top Gear comments whilst contrived on camera are basically true. Electric cars are hopeless on range (especially for a supercar when driven as a supercar) and take a ridiculous amount of time to charge. Petrol (or even diesel) cars can simply have some fuel added in seconds and you're on your way again and generally go a lot further on a tank, although a supercar driven as such will also have significantly compromised range. However, you simply add more fuel and drive on.

So, the comments were fair, the program is obviosuly entertainment and the nature of the show is well known. So, as far as I can tell, they haven't got a hope in hell. Tesla seem to think the stupidities of the American legal system have all made it over here. Well, they haven't and the British can actually work out the difference between vitriol and light hearted taking the piss.

As Clarkson would say, epic fail from Tesla.

Cost/benefit analysis and freedoms

The issue of smoking is really only around two issues; cost/benefit analysis and freedoms.

From a cost/benefit anaylsis point of view, they're god sends. Not only do they pay in about £10.5b in tax etc. (which people quote) and cost at most £5b a year (NHS etc.), but they also generally die earlier (or at least a reasonable quantity of them) and therefore have additional savings in terms of pensions etc.etc. So, from a cost/benefit analysis, smokers are great and the more we can have, the better for everyone else.

From a freedom point of view, it's far from simple either. People who complain about breathing in smoke don't often complain about their cars pumping out noxious gases!! Or, at least, are perfectly happy to keep using them, even though car exhaust fumes are shown to cause ill health as well. Same for loads of other activities. However, as smoking is higher up the toxicity list and has a quicker and more profound effect, I can understand some limitations. However, people often complain simply because they're not prepared to do something themselves. The number of people I've heard of asking for a ban in pubs (as has now happened) rather than having smoking and non-smoking pubs. The reason? If they go out with their friends, they'll want to do in a smoking pub because that is their vice (as well as alcohol presumably). That measn the complainer either has to upset their friends or not go if they want to avoid smoke. Rather than do this, it's easier for them to pass the buck onto the government and get them to enact legislation that covers the problem for them.

So, all in all, I believe everyone needs to become more tolerant. Yes, smokers need to try and avoid impacting people who don't smoke and many do. However, equally well, those that don't smoke have to stop coughing and spluttering everytime a small whiff of smoke comes near them. It's about tolerance. There are plenty of other 'noxious' activities (and I include in this the consumption of alcohol) that don't attract the same level of abuse as smoking and yet are just as bad. In the case of alcohol, it's considered the worst of all, including all drugs etc. in the respect of impact on society.

Missed something

I think Jeremy and co missed something in the description. How about adding 'humourless' at the end. Seems a done deal bearing in mind their reaction to the show. Amazing how many countries just don't get humour. The Japanese getting upset over QI is quite incredible as well given their well documented 'entertainment' shows normally involving torturing people in all sorts of inventive ways.

Evolution

The problem with evolution is that random mutations will cause both good and bad traits. In some cases, it's difficult to know which camp it fits in. Survival of the fittest is the mechanism nature created to deal with this by removing the bad traits using a combination of methods, including killing idiots or at least maiming them to make them easy prey to other creatures. Unfortunately, in todays health and safety conscious world, we've implemented many methods and rules to remove natural selection, which results in the bad genes being allowed to multiply. We're actually dumbing down the human race here folks. People should never be prevented from killing themselves due to their own stupidity, as this is exactly what nature intended.

It's incredible how on certain occasions, nature is held up as being the best way and nature is always right etc., but on other occasions (such as this), nature is held to be wrong and we must keep these morons alive!!

Darwin Awards

I guess this rather begs the question of why nobody had thought to electrify the water (or change it from water to something else) to remove these genes from the gene pool. Clearly, she's a liability. Perhaps the judge should force her to employ someone to walk infront of her and warn everyone else to avoid the general area of the stupid bint.

Stupidity

The method most commonly used for spotting cannabis farms is to ask the electricity/gas suppliers for addresses which are using far higher amounts of energy than might be expected for a property that size. Growing cannabis is extremely energy intensive and generally it is electricity that is used for heating, the hydroponics and lights etc. Obviously, there are other reasons why a house might use very large amounts of electricity (such as servers!! - IT angle), this ploy at least reduces the targets considerably. It means someone can turn up on foot with a thermal camera and confirm the prescence of a lot of heat, generally over a sizeable area, say the roof. Then, investigations proceed if found.

This is quite efficient and certainly a hell of a lot better than flying a helicopter with thermal imaging gear around an area looking for anything 'hot'. It also provides a secondary piece of supporting evidence, the electricity (usually) use.

Shows nobody knows how to waste taxpayer money like the police. Absolute bunch of planks.

Masive difference

There is a huge difference between the two cases here.

With Wikileaks, they are leaking information that was intended to either never be released, or released so many years into the future, everyone is dead and nobody cares, except possibly historians.

With leaking details from Assanje's case, they are leaking information that would naturally become available during the trial (it would be presented) and therefore subverting justice. Indeed, there is a clause in British law that says if this information gets into the press and he can reasonable show he wouldn't get a fair trial as a result, the case collapses and he cannot be tried!! So, in this case, they might be doing the women an injustice.........

So, this release potentially prejudices the trial and is simply releasing the information a few months, at most a couple, of years early. But then, this never has had anything to do with fairness. Assanje always helped with the inquiry by the Swedish police, answered all their questions and even asked persmission to leave the country. They agreed!! Now, they want him held in custody in case he runs!! Why didn't he in the first place then? Really is beyond a joke.

Anyone who supports this is clearly not in favour of justice and clearly can't understand the difference between personal information and non-personal information.

Evidential Trail

Whilst I appreciate this chap may actually have written this document and be a complete idiot, it is actually up to the police to 'prove' he wrote it. This requires evidential trails and all sorts of things like that which are hard enough to do when you mean to on business systems, let alone on a home users system. In short, the police have nothing. There is no way they can prove he did write the document (strangely enough being named in properties is evidentially worth nothing) and so there is no possible case. This even supposes writing the document was illegal in the first place. The worst it could be is threatening.

The police and politicians under pressure from the US are simply trying to put the scarers on people. If people on the jury are stupid enough to believe the properties of a pdf are proof positive he did it, they need removing from the gene pool along with his lawyer.

How?

Now, maybe I'm being thick here, but I assume this is working through some sort of triangulation of the sound? Given that this is a city location, with plenty of buildings etc., surely the sound must rebound around so much as to make this very problematic? Also, doesn't this just make a silencer the object of desire in Birmingham?