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User: bingoathome

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Comments · 37

  1. Re:Is there a chance of it hitting a satellite? on NASA Says Asteroid Will Buzz Earth Closer Than Many Satellites · · Score: 1

    Circumference

  2. Re:Amazon Kindle text to speech on Intel's New E-Reader For the Visually Impaired · · Score: 1

    Its different because the idea came from Foss ( Ben - sorry I RTA )

  3. Re:Woops! on Intergalactic Race Shows That Einstein Still Rules · · Score: 1

    No no no - Imagine if every body did that - a near empty /.

  4. Re:Lots of blokes called John on Medieval UK Battle Records Released Online · · Score: 1

    Lots of records with no family /surname. "What's your name soldier?" "John" "Right, stick him down scribe, John the archer".

    .

    and scibe assign him to Starship Captain

    I know I shouldn't have

  5. Re:The 99% Solution on Designer Babies · · Score: 1

    I believe the infanticide of several 10's of millions of female children in recent years will be seen as the greatest tragedy of all time ( assuming historians exist in the future ). You are right tho' it will get sorted out and I doubt it will be nice. I keep thinking there must be a lot over underground 'gay stuff " going on - I think I have even heard of raiding nearby countries to abduct females. I might add it is not only China doing this now and historically there are many examples but just not the shear numbers . The extend of this tradgedy is that it is not a foreign power decimating another but an internal process at the family level.

  6. Re:alternate... on Most Extreme Gamma-Ray Blast Yet Detected · · Score: 1

    Yes but if it was a tightly focused weapon that missed its target 12 billion years ago then it might have only needed to be half a super nova (which is equal to 20 LoC raised to the power of a slashdot meme). Any hooos if you can decimate someone else's 2000 light years of space why not - teach a lesson an' all that.

  7. Re:Short and long answers? on Can a Small Business Migrate Smoothly To OpenOffice.org v3? · · Score: 1

    I have experienced a Office 2007 Spreadsheet that would not open in Office 2003 with the compatibility pack ( but that Office 2003 could open other 2007 created docs and spread sheets - sort of proving the compatibility pack had installed correctly ) where as OOo was able to open the file. Based on this evidence - all of teh bases belong to OOo.

  8. Re:Spinach on Image of Popeye Enters Public Domain In the EU · · Score: 1
    There are many things that we could all do better :-)

    When I follow your link to a check of Amazon it shows a book called "Seeds of Change: Six Plants That Transformed Mankind" however the first review I read mentions only 5 plants. The missing plant wait for it .... Coca - in the book he refers to both Popeye and at least one Charlie Chaplin movie that appeared to be references to Cocaine. Your links seem reasonable - at the mo' I have loaned the book to my brother and can't refer to his rational.

    It is a great read - amongst many interesting things I felt he put a great case for decriminalising drugs but at the same time making a great case for why addictive drugs (such as Cocaine ) should be avoided.

    I was wondering if in fact there existed a censored version of the book ( he speaks not unfavourably of the use of the drug in its natural form so some Govt. might not like it ) - if you have read it let me know.

    Happy Days

  9. Spinach on Image of Popeye Enters Public Domain In the EU · · Score: 1

    Off topic but I thought I would mention that in "Seeds of Change " Henry Hobhouse mentions the use of Spinach was a thinly veiled nod to Cocaine and also generations of kids had to eat the stuff because it was a high source of iron - where as it is nothing special for a leafy green.

  10. Re:thoughts on Tales From the Support Crypt · · Score: 1

    Yes the ones that think they know - press this button once - hearing down the receiver beep beep beep beep - you pressed some other buttons? Yes. OK - we just need to go back a few steps now.

  11. Re:Kill!!! on Tales From the Support Crypt · · Score: 1

    Agreed - and thought I would add a little anecdotal evidence. I have found some professions require more assistance than others - the one I find most interesting is how often nurses have difficulty with simple tasks - my belief is there job is in some ways a life and death roller coaster and loading toner in the machine correctly is low on their radar. By the way I think very highly of nurses - salt of the earth and all that. Unsurprisingly lawyers are the rudest as a rule and quite often have difficult with simple things also - I aint making any excuses for them.

  12. Re:Kill!!! on Tales From the Support Crypt · · Score: 1

    You bet - get them involved - explain it any way you can - give full tech acronyms and jargon - or dumb it way down to "its the button on the right at the top of the mouse" - describe simple shapes and positions - use analogies. The downside - you end up with a host of clients that only want to speak to you.

  13. Re:Respect the user perspective, please on Tales From the Support Crypt · · Score: 1

    Yes I have reached the low point and have asked clients to either make a complaint or hang up as they are not telling me anything I have not heard a lot of times before ( I have done approx 80k cases for the copier/printer/fax/scanner company I work for - I've been here for a long time). Of course I phrase it a lot nicer than that. Interestingly in almost all cases a complaint does not help. Certainly with our major clients the people that do the buying and the users are so separated that poor service standards are not reported back to those who sign the cheque. With smaller clients they can complain all they want - the PHBs sometimes give in sometimes not - it does seem the noisier the client the more attention they get - if they are real lucky I am directed to sort it:-) Heading even further OT - one complaint I raised for a client was the crap user manual. The manager calls me and asks me what it was about so I explained the specific example the client raised was quick dial programming - ( this was of course clearly explained in the case notes ) . I suggested she attempt to program one her self as that was the same model as the one in her office - she was too busy ( she told me )to do that - but the client received a nice official letter apologising thanking input blah .

  14. Re:Mythbusters on Vatican Says Alien Life Plausible · · Score: 1

    Not religious myself either - but you are right about weird - it all comes down to faith. One little philosophical game a played the other night led me to conclude that Christians are all agnostic because they can never know the truth and have to make a leap of faith to believe in god - they are , therefore , agnostic because they have 'no knowledge ' only faith. I am an agnostic aetheist beccause i dont know god exists ( who could ) but i believe it likely he does not.

  15. Re:yay free market on Study Warns of Internet Brownouts By 2010 · · Score: 1

    fractils

  16. Re:yay free market on Study Warns of Internet Brownouts By 2010 · · Score: 1

    Indeed - I believe the definition is something along the lines of " demand will exceed supply - with out artificial restraints"

  17. Re:Old Technology on Terabit-Per-Second Class Connections over FTTH · · Score: 1

    Also in faxes since mid/late 80's. It helped with doubling max speed to 9600 bits - woo hoo.

  18. Re:Bad News... on US Internet Control To Be Topic #1 In Rio · · Score: 1

    Fax transmissions are damn hard to intercept with out the assistance of the carrier. The act of "listening" upsets the volume / voltage of the communication and would often cause the communication to fail. Again I have no hard facts to back it up - but I have done a lot of analogue fax comms diagnosis.

  19. Re:Just wondering? on US Internet Control To Be Topic #1 In Rio · · Score: 1

    I imagine that my Country - Australia - will be monitoring traffic and happily reporting back to the NSA - my guess is that it will be part of our obligations under recent trade agreements - I also imagine the many other countries provide this service too - I reckon that the cost to the NSA might not be much _ I do realize you were a bit "tongue in cheek". Of course this is all stated with out a fact to back it up - but it does seem to be SNAFU

  20. Re:I tip my hat to your sarcasm... on Schneier On the War On the Unexpected · · Score: 1

    True True. We will never know who has the high score. I have no way of knowing. But I felt obliged to object to the parent. I am struggling through Gibbons Decline and fall of th Roman empire - (gutenberg.org has it - think thats right ) just started the 6th volume - v.interesting to get the views of a well of englishman from the late 1700's . I am on volume 6 believe Mohamed appears shortly. I will try to start a tally ;-). Thanks for the note

  21. Re:I tip my hat to your sarcasm... on Schneier On the War On the Unexpected · · Score: 1

    I know I should not feed the trolls but - I would be highly surprised if the "the frag count " between (so called ) Christians and ( so called ) Muslims taken over the life of the conflict was not close to even ( although I suspect Christians are leading the tally). There is an easy 1000 years plus of intolerance that has occured.

  22. Re:Look at the way many people treat their laptops on The Khaki Bandit Strikes At IT - 130 Stolen Laptops · · Score: 1

    "When exactly did thievery become accepted as the 'norm'?"
    In polite society about 30 years ago I reckon. Every where else always has been. Half kidding.

  23. Re:Waaaiiit a minute... on Note To Criminals — Don't Call Tech Support · · Score: 1

    Godwinned

  24. Re:Just do (n00b question).... on Ubuntu 7.10 "Gutsy Gibbon" Is Out · · Score: 1

    Your sig reminded me . I work on a helpdesk , have done for ever it seems - I often used to say "I am a the Lifeguard in the shallow end of the genetic pool." Now... I let 'em drown.

  25. Re:"Save Darfur Stove" is stupid on Low-tech Inventions That Help Change Lives · · Score: 1

    Hi You obviously have spent some time on that and I believe much of what you say could be true. However I do believe Europeans are not with out some guilt for the state of Africa today.