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Survey Says To UK — Repeal Laws of Thermodynamics
mostxlnt writes "As we noted, the new Tory UK government has launched a website asking its subjects which laws they'd most like repealed. There are proposals up for repeal of the Laws of Thermodynamics: Second, Third, and all (discussion thread on this one closed by a moderator). One comment on the Third [now apparently deleted] elucidated: 'Without the Third Law of Thermodynamics, it would be possible to build machines that would last forever and provide an endless source of cheap energy. thus solving both potential crises in energy supply as well as solving the greenhouse gas problem in one step... simples... eh?'"
No other way.
Not idiots, just trolls who want a few lulz.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Well what the hell did you expect? The site is little more than theater - nobody in power is going to take it seriously one way or the other, so why not have a little fun with it?
I think it's happening because of this article on a British clone of The Onion, called NewsBiscuit... http://www.newsbiscuit.com/2010/07/05/nick-clegg-to-repeal-second-law-of-thermodynamics/
These aren't complete idiots. Everyone knows the First Law is what prevents robots doing harm to humans.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I suspect that nobody is really that bothered by laws requiring those under 16 to practice with the longbow or cabs to carry bails of hay. I also seriously doubt that many people even know that many laws, let alone which ones are absurd.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I remember a news article that circulated around the communications company where I worked, on some April 1st, saying that Shannon's Law had been repealed, and the company was ready to release a new product offering high speed Internet access over HF on a 2.8 kHz channel. So, I'd vote for Shannon's Law to be repealed.
Parent is a restatement of the second law of Thermodynamics. Idiots flow from areas with fewer idiots to areas with more idiots, but it takes work to reverse the flow and decrease the idiot density of one (low-density) area while increasing the idiot density of another, higher-idiot-density area.
Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
idiots pour through.
Whereas most smart people in Britain would rather repeal the law that Americans don't get British sarcasm and wit, but sadly that also seems to be an unchangeable law of nature...
Here was I thinking we had a coalition of Tory and Libs.
We need simple easy to remember mathmatical and physical constants. Alabama failed to pass this modification to the universe. Washington could do much better.
When I was young, I had to rub sticks together to compute.
I actually thought about this once, not that I have any illusions about being able to do it; it was just a Gedankenexperiment. My conclusion was that if the Second Law was eliminated, the odds are good that somewhere in the universe some process would enter a feedback loop, producing ever more energy at an ever accelerating rate, and the first we'd know about it would be when the shock wave washed over us at a substantial fraction of the speed of light.
The universe as it stands may be a raw deal, but most imaginable tweaks to the laws of physics make it even worse.
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Well what the hell did you expect? The site is little more than theater
It is because people like you are making it one.
What if it's real? Why try to kill something that might actually help before it has a chance to show if it's theater or not?
Why is it so hard to believe that a group being voted in on a wave of people finding the government unreasonable, might in fact want to git rid of some of the more egregious laws that have sprung up? It seems pretty obvious if you get rid of very unpopular laws you (and your group) are going to win more elections. So the thought that it's theater did not occur to me, if for no other reason than politician self-interest - and do you really want to bet against THAT?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Idiots flow from areas with fewer idiots to areas with more idiots, but it takes work to reverse the flow and decrease the idiot density of one (low-density) area while increasing the idiot density of another, higher-idiot-density area.
Now demonstrated to be false since the discovery of Quantum Bogodynamics, back in the early days of IT. http://wikibin.org/articles/quantum-bogodynamics.html Idiots flow from idiot-dense areas to low idiot density - non-idiots must work hard to either keep idiots out. This force is transmitted by an Idiot giving up a particle of Bogon which is absorbed by a non-idiot. Thus manifesting as an attractive force.
This is why the most beautifully engineered and brilliant machines will fail in the most spectacular way when the strongest bogon emitters are invariably attracted to them. This is why Lamborghinis seem to spontanously catch on fire but that old Toyota Corolla you can't can't kill.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
Did parent and GP just describe the influx of people from high-replacement rural areas to low-replacement urban areas, or did I miss something?
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
And they that sarcasm doesn't travel well.
In case it wasn't entirely obvious, these are jokes. The whole process is a farce, so people are making jokes. I know, I know, I shouldn't have to say.
When you are caught break a regular law (speeding, larceny, etc.), you can expect to be punished with a fine or worse.
If you manage to break any of the Laws of Thermodynamics, you can expect to be lauded, copied, co-author a stream of high-impact papers, get offered some cushy sinecures, and eventually receive a Nobel prize.
The far likelier outcome, of course, is to be given an Ignobel prize, for a fruitless and ill-conceived waste of effort. I suspect the UK government can look forward to at least an honorable mention at the next Ig award ceremonies.
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
It's not a Tory government, it's a coalition government.
The first law of Thermodynamics is that YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT THERMODYNAMICS!
If a man empties his purse into his head no man can take it from him. An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.
http://yourfreedom.hmg.gov.uk/restoring-civil-liberties/repeal-the-british-north-america-act-1867
It's a joke, amazed that you guys think these submissions are from idiots that believe this is possible. It's a British site, we enjoy taking the piss out of government crap.
...rule 34?
is it a law?
Wealth is the gift that keeps on giving.
Once. I mentioned to my Dad how neat the centrifugal force was. Then he pushed me off.
I mean really, it's not even tagged "Funny". Probably because people trolling what appears to be a legitimate attempt by an oppressive government to actually be, you know, less oppressive, really isn't funny to begin with.
Same goes for the previous "story", whose title is not just grossly misleading, but plain wrong. Curiously, these two stories have the same editor. And yes, I'm willing to risk my karma to point this out.
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
The reason this is largely being treated as a joke by the British people is that most of the unpopular laws are coming from Brussels, not London.
I found another online survey the results of which reflects similar sentiments.
So did I the first time I heard it. I knew there was a trick since the person had a giant idiot grin on his face while he cited the number of fatalities caused buy it.
This is one of those tricks that idiots hear and like to repeat because it make them think they are looking clever. Have you ever know someone who memorized the answers to one or two incredibility difficult equations and kept spouting it out? My favorite are people who run their emails through a thesaurus so they can use bigger words even when they do not know what those new words mean.
I think that we can all agree that we should work together.
becomes
I deliberate that we container all enunciate that we should vocation simultaneously.
The serious favourite for repeal on that site is the law against cannabis. Perfectly reasonable law to repeal. Plenty of good reasons for doing so. But there's no change the government will do so. They aren't really interested in hearing what the public wants. They just want it to appear that they are listening.
Hence why the public choose to ridicule the whole thing by voting for the repeal of various laws of physics.
It's far from a "real opportunity to be involved in politics", unless by that statement you mean it's "an opportunity to have their views ignored by politicians". If our government (and I'm aware that it's a different government, I've seen enough to know they're all basically the same) could ignore the views of 750,000 - 2,000,000 people who turned up in person to protest the Iraq war, what makes you think they won't ignore people who are only posting on the internet? We already have the precedent of government ignoring mass e-petitions on the number 10 petition site, so far as I can see this is no different, they'll cherry pick the laws they want to repeal, find a handful of petitioners and use that to justify that they're following the will of the people, meanwhile they'll conveniently ignore any large petitions to repeal laws they actually want to keep.
It's far from a "real opportunity to be involved in politics", unless by that statement you mean it's "an opportunity to have their views ignored by politicians".
Worse than that, it's an opportunity for politicians to selectively "hear" opinions which support a particular effort or view, and ignore the rest. If everyone were being ignored uniformly, that would at least be fair.
Long signatures suck.