I personally also find it amazing and shocking that as a small island nation the people responsible for pulling drowning people out of the water, going miles out to sea in huge storms to save drowning sailors and rescue fishermen are voluntary and unfunded.
I'd rather entrust my safety at sea to someone who's out there because they want to be there and volunteered to go out there than someone who's only doing it half-assed because they're fed up with the crappy paycheque they get each month.
If you catch my...drift.
Wow, I'm so glad I don't live on your planet..
I think I'll go out right now and do something irrational like fall in love or consider the lilies of the field, just to wind you up.
"Nerf should be fine as long as it's obvious that it IS a Nerf weapon."
Elsewhere in this thread, someone's pointed out criminals painting the tips of their gun barrels orange so they look more like Airsoft guns.
And you can buy gun paint, not just in camouflage, but in a variety of bright flashy colours, to make The Real Thing(tm) look like more like a Nerf gun.
When Bloomberg tried to ban the sale of these paints in NYC, the company making them brought out a special line named for him. Who needs a bright pink pistol? According to the company director 'Women like to accessorize their firearms'. Lovely.
In the British case, what you're describing doesn't even come close to the level of personal information that the government wants stored on the card and in the national database associated with it.
You're describing a simple piece of identification. The British plans are to store or link 50+ categories of information to the ID, cross-reference these and store them all centrally. Slap on a legal requirement to notify the government of any change in these 50+ piece of information. Add to that that not just government, but also the private sector will have access to the database (vastly multiplying the possibilities security lapses). Given their recently demonstrated skill at misplacing and misdirecting people's confidential information, I'd just as soon not have to carry a card that can be used to recreate an audit trail of every time I've been in contact with any facet of government, ever.
To compare with a couple of European examples, in Germany centralisation of storage is illegal (for historical reasons), and when you replace a card, previous records aren't linked into it. In Belgium, storage is again at the local level and there is no cross-referencing.
Basically the British ID plans operate on a far vaster and more pervasive scale than the few examples you've tried to compare them to.
I don't remember the name of the game, I must've been 2 or 3 when I played this. I cannot remember anything about the computer I played it on, aside from that the screen only displayed black and a lightish brown color. The game involved a donkey (the player) on a road, and you had to dodge cars, debris in the road, or something, by changing lanes, which you did by hitting the spacebar key.
I really wish I could remember the name of it, but it was 16 years ago. Try about 27 years ago..
That game (my first gaming experience too!) was 'Donkey' from the set of sample programs that came with the first IBM PCs. You controlled the car, and donkeys would scroll down at you from the top of the screen. It's a wonder I didn't wear out the space bar..
It looks like in their total speculation about the creature As others have pointed out, these creatures were quite common in their day and we have many, many fossils of them to infer overall size from. This is just a larger-than-previously-seen variety of a known species.
But this evidence is saying that for 160,000 years, there was virtually no technological development. There would also be virtually no population growth.
Perhaps the problem is that you don't consider any technological development before agriculture to be valid?
I invite you to try your hand at flintknapping..
Even looking at our recent history, we see the rise of advanced civilizations (such as the Aztecs) where there was relatively primitive civilization before.
There's some Olmecs and Mayas at the door that'd like to have a word with you..
When you consider the advances that mankind has made in technology over the past 5000 years, it is astounding. It is even more astounding to think that for the preceding 35,000 years, there was virtually no technological advancement at all! Now we hear that the date may be pushed back even further, and my incredulity grows.
What you call no technological advancement, I call quite a bit of technological advancement, against the pressures of an Ice Age and moving out of Africa and into the wider world. You're confusing technological advancement for its own sake with technological advancement under the effects of some kind of external pressure. If the technological toolkit you've got works well and requires no improvements for you to get food on the table and have sufficient leisure time, there's little incentive to seek to improve it.
The picture gets even more murky when you consider population growth. Population only really stagnates in a primitive society based on limited resources. Even with the worst estimates of the extent of impact from the last ice age, there would be plenty of land mass available for very habitable land for man to expand into. If mankind had been reproducing for 35,000 to 200,000 years, would we not have many, many more people today? Something is just not adding up here.
Look at how quickly populations grew during historical periods when the bulk of the Earth's landmass was settled and agriculture was available. They've increased incredibly slowly from about 10,000 BC (roughly the introduction of agriculture) to the Industrial Revolution, barring a surge upwards about the time that urban societies were spreading across the Mediterranean.
If you think of it in terms of carrying capacity, there have been probably three big surges in the human population. The first is linked to stone tools and the control of fire (easier to get food, more foods edible because they can be cooked). Eventually these advances get you to a point of equilibrium. The next big advance is agriculture (less leisure time but the possibility of long-term storage of food surpluses). Again, you get a big upsurge in population that eventually reaches an point of some equilibrium. The third advance is the Industrial Revolution (tapping stored energy to fuel intensified agriculture). That one's still not reached any kind of equilibrium.
Now, consider this: going from 2000-20,000 modern humans (Toba disaster estimates) to 4,000,000 (estimated world population c.10kBC, about the time agriculture came into play) is a 200-2000-fold increase. Compare that with the change in world population from 1750 (about 800 million) to the present day (about 6 billion), and that's only a 7.5-fold increase. Your population explosion is there, but the total numbers are so small that, effectively, twice small potatoes is still small potatoes.
S&T and Astronomy have been hammering this since *at least* 1987.
They pointed out that most 'security' lighting throws it's light sideways and up, where it at best does no good, at worst just shines in the eyes of any observer and makes it harder to see what's going on in the area it's supposed to be 'protecting'.
The point is you can have lighting for security, and if it's properly designed it'll throw light into the areas it's needed (bases of walls near the building, etc.), but without blinding potential witnesses or being wasted upwards into the sky.
I don't disagree with you on the perception of safety being what matters to people.
Thing is though, most of these 'security' lights actually make it harder to see what's going on, because they shine glare straight into your eyes.
So have the lights, but also have the fixtures to direct the light where it needs to go, at the base of walls and into the dark corners where someone could hide, rather than straight out (and up) into your eyes.
In other words, we need to get at the lighting engineers and the people who sell security lights to improve their product.
What's more, many kinds of predatory fish (salmon, cod, whatever) have sets of teeth down their throats. It'll be interesting to see now whether and how any of these use them in an active fashion.
Yes! Zooarchaeology geekdom finally pays dividends on/.!!!
You can't be against this, because it will protect the children. After all, if we have their DNA and they're kidnapped, we'll be able to find them quicker. Will someone please think of the children? Judging by last week's UK 'Protecting our children' story, loosely-defined famous people won't have to submit their DNA, to protect their privacy.
I, for one, welcome our unsubmitted-DNA overlords.
I have seen sunken wrecks from satellite images though... Scapa Flow has quite a few scuttled wrecks from WW II. Ouch. I want to believe you, but.. say something to convince me those grey shapes (the green ones match the three skerries between Hoy and Graemsay) aren't just wisps of cloud? They don't appear to match the sketch map very well (but then, the sketch map doesn't match the shore of Hoy very well either). To me they look to be outlying cloud from the formation lying over the south end of Graemsay.
Gripe: When will they get around to updating coverage of Orkney! >:(
I hate to disagree with you, but you may be incorrect. At least, the area of Hoxa Head that's scheduled as 'Hoxa Head Battery' is the very tip of the peninsula, and no monuments are listed as being on the south edge of the Head. There is an AA battery, military camp and radar site listed further inland on the Head, but they're clearly located away from the coastline.
Disclaimer: I've never visited despite having spent time in Orkney. Information from the Royal Commission on Ancient and Historic Monuments, I used their PASTMAP to search if you want to check my work!
For comparison, I've been to Yesnaby and know there's a huge concrete pad still visible on the surface there, which isn't visible on Google. Link here
I agree with you about not wanting it to jump the shark, but IMO they tend to can programs before they actually peak. Add to that the much shorter runs (6 episodes a season sometimes?), and I don't think they're getting close to getting full value out of sometimes really great ideas.
Read it again:
When the British started moving into what is now BC, one of the arguments they used to justify kicking First Nations off the land was that the First Nations weren't making use of that land. They made this claim because the local FN were not visibly farming the land. They therefore arrogated to themselves the right to take possession of that land by the logic that the FN weren't using it, so it was 'vacant'.
This was, of course, convenient bullshit on the part of the British governors and colonists that let them get away without signing the same kinds of treaties that were being signed in the rest of the colonies.
I was pointing out the ridiculousness of claiming someone whose technology base clearly involves a high degree of forestry isn't 'making use of' land entirely covered with forests.
It's probably making up for the fact they didn't get the vote until after WWII, and even then only because FN war vets demanded it on the basis of their wartime service.
Sounds like you're bitter 'cause you forgot to vote or something.
If I take an unused (by people) area of land, covered in trees etc, spend my time working on it to turn it into arable pasture and start growing crops then I own that land. Funny thing, that's pretty much the logic the British used to grab up all of British Columbia: "It's just a virgin forest, the natives aren't using it at all, so if we clear it, it's ours!" "Hmm, I wonder where all those cedar canoes and wooden houses came from?" "Must have fallen from the sky, hey, I'm going to clear that stretch over there!"
It really burns my ass to know that the 45% or so tax that comes off my cheque every week goes in a large majority directly to them DIAND budget: $5.8 billion
Total Canadian revenue: $198 billion
5.8 / 198 = 3%
What large majority was that again?
Slashdot Mirror
I personally also find it amazing and shocking that as a small island nation the people responsible for pulling drowning people out of the water, going miles out to sea in huge storms to save drowning sailors and rescue fishermen are voluntary and unfunded.
I'd rather entrust my safety at sea to someone who's out there because they want to be there and volunteered to go out there than someone who's only doing it half-assed because they're fed up with the crappy paycheque they get each month. If you catch my...drift.
Wow, I'm so glad I don't live on your planet.. I think I'll go out right now and do something irrational like fall in love or consider the lilies of the field, just to wind you up.
"Nerf should be fine as long as it's obvious that it IS a Nerf weapon."
Elsewhere in this thread, someone's pointed out criminals painting the tips of their gun barrels orange so they look more like Airsoft guns.
And you can buy gun paint, not just in camouflage, but in a variety of bright flashy colours, to make The Real Thing(tm) look like more like a Nerf gun.
When Bloomberg tried to ban the sale of these paints in NYC, the company making them brought out a special line named for him. Who needs a bright pink pistol? According to the company director 'Women like to accessorize their firearms'. Lovely.
In the British case, what you're describing doesn't even come close to the level of personal information that the government wants stored on the card and in the national database associated with it.
You're describing a simple piece of identification. The British plans are to store or link 50+ categories of information to the ID, cross-reference these and store them all centrally. Slap on a legal requirement to notify the government of any change in these 50+ piece of information. Add to that that not just government, but also the private sector will have access to the database (vastly multiplying the possibilities security lapses).
Given their recently demonstrated skill at misplacing and misdirecting people's confidential information, I'd just as soon not have to carry a card that can be used to recreate an audit trail of every time I've been in contact with any facet of government, ever.
To compare with a couple of European examples, in Germany centralisation of storage is illegal (for historical reasons), and when you replace a card, previous records aren't linked into it. In Belgium, storage is again at the local level and there is no cross-referencing.
Basically the British ID plans operate on a far vaster and more pervasive scale than the few examples you've tried to compare them to.
Better still, copyright* the fax you send and then take 'em to court for making a copy of it!
*Why no, now that you mention it, IANAL.
S&T and Astronomy have been hammering this since *at least* 1987.
They pointed out that most 'security' lighting throws it's light sideways and up, where it at best does no good, at worst just shines in the eyes of any observer and makes it harder to see what's going on in the area it's supposed to be 'protecting'.
The point is you can have lighting for security, and if it's properly designed it'll throw light into the areas it's needed (bases of walls near the building, etc.), but without blinding potential witnesses or being wasted upwards into the sky.
I don't disagree with you on the perception of safety being what matters to people.
Thing is though, most of these 'security' lights actually make it harder to see what's going on, because they shine glare straight into your eyes.
So have the lights, but also have the fixtures to direct the light where it needs to go, at the base of walls and into the dark corners where someone could hide, rather than straight out (and up) into your eyes.
In other words, we need to get at the lighting engineers and the people who sell security lights to improve their product.
..or pose for Page 3 of the Sun a lot, presumably.
Yes! Zooarchaeology geekdom finally pays dividends on /.!!!
I, for one, welcome our unsubmitted-DNA overlords.
Gripe: When will they get around to updating coverage of Orkney! >:(
I hate to disagree with you, but you may be incorrect. At least, the area of Hoxa Head that's scheduled as 'Hoxa Head Battery' is the very tip of the peninsula, and no monuments are listed as being on the south edge of the Head. There is an AA battery, military camp and radar site listed further inland on the Head, but they're clearly located away from the coastline. Disclaimer: I've never visited despite having spent time in Orkney. Information from the Royal Commission on Ancient and Historic Monuments, I used their PASTMAP to search if you want to check my work! For comparison, I've been to Yesnaby and know there's a huge concrete pad still visible on the surface there, which isn't visible on Google. Link here
I agree with you about not wanting it to jump the shark, but IMO they tend to can programs before they actually peak. Add to that the much shorter runs (6 episodes a season sometimes?), and I don't think they're getting close to getting full value out of sometimes really great ideas.
Read it again: When the British started moving into what is now BC, one of the arguments they used to justify kicking First Nations off the land was that the First Nations weren't making use of that land. They made this claim because the local FN were not visibly farming the land. They therefore arrogated to themselves the right to take possession of that land by the logic that the FN weren't using it, so it was 'vacant'. This was, of course, convenient bullshit on the part of the British governors and colonists that let them get away without signing the same kinds of treaties that were being signed in the rest of the colonies. I was pointing out the ridiculousness of claiming someone whose technology base clearly involves a high degree of forestry isn't 'making use of' land entirely covered with forests.
It's probably making up for the fact they didn't get the vote until after WWII, and even then only because FN war vets demanded it on the basis of their wartime service. Sounds like you're bitter 'cause you forgot to vote or something.