Actually, I think you'll find that 150 million people in the United States alone claim British heritage. Did I not mention that I was one of them? Was not that actually part of my point, that our heritage was British?
KFG
Re:Can I smell something ?
on
Directed Sound
·
· Score: 2, Funny
Naaaah, not vapourware, because it really does exist. It's more like ignoreware. If they kept ignoring it things would work out ok. One can dream.
But yes, it is a rather old story. Last year my mom asked me if I'd heard of it and wondered if it were something she should invest in.
If my mom has heard of it as an investment opportunity it's definately old news.
I told her what it was being promoted as useful for and she decided she didn't want to encourage that sort of shit with her money.
So is it your opinion then that white, British descended, Kiwis have the history of the Maori as their heritage?
Since there are a few surviving Maori left there might be some discussion on the matter, and perhaps some hard feelings over it too.
I really don't see the modern, white Kiwis gathering in the town square for a massive fucking for fertility session (a practice that, personally, I think makes a lot more sense than killing someone for fertility) as part of his "heritage." If the Maori tried it today I rather suspect their heritage would see them all in jail. There's a conflict of heritage here.
As a white, British descended North American I can understand that if I started claiming heritage rights to a Mohawk burial ground/sacred site some modern Mohawk might well think I was rather out of line, seeing as not a single one of my antecedents had anything to do with it.
On the other hand, I rather doubt that any of the Native Americans would particularly object to my building a Stonehenge (although I'm more inclined to a Nerfhenge myself) replica here because they would perceive it as part of my British heritage. If you objected you'd be being an asshole, because my ancestors lay there under the stars and listened to tales of the elders and have at least as much claim to it as yours.
Whereas if I wanted to celebrate the life and traditions of my North American ancestors I could, well, move into a tenement building in Harlem and then go to a moving picture. I think I'll pass. It lacks something as an ancestral ritual.
For the majority of New Zealanders Stonehenge is their heritage and their purely New Zealand heritage goes back no farther than the mid 1800s.
What would you have them do, kill a native, build a clerk's office and a railroad to celebrate their heritage?
Should the Maori celebrate the Crusade of Richard I as part of their heritage, or The Tower? That would seem to be exactly the sort of thing you're objecting to. The road goes both ways.
Yes, New Zealand is an awesome place. Yes, it has a rich cultural heritage, but that cultural heritage is not shared by its populace until completely modern times.
Yes, but my personal observation is that, unlike in the movies, when stupid people try to do evil they cause even more trouble for us than they'd actually intended, without even getting what they want, rendering the whole exercise pointless for everybody.
Well, I guess I'm an ubergeek then, because as I've posted before, he's only halfway there. He needs copies of all that stuff offsight as well.
A safety deposit box can useful for such things, or even just a friend. He keeps yours, you keep his. The meatspace version of posting it to an ftp site and letting everyone mirror it. Hey, maybe he's got some pr0n you haven't seen yet.
Keeping duplicates of such records in storage is also one of the traditional roles of the family lawyer, if anyone out there is still so quaint as to have one of those. If not maybe you should think about getting one, because he's going to be the guy who takes care of your will.
Papers, passwords (in a sealed envelope to be opened in the event of your death), etc go to your lawyer. You also designate an executor. That's the family member/friend you wish to see carry out the provisions of your will. The executor gets the envelope of passwords and instructions for what to do with them from the lawyer, and carries them out.
It's really all fairly standard stuff. The inclusion of computer files doesn't alter things at all really. People have been dying for years.
Watching television, you'd think we lived at bay, in total jeopardy, surrounded on all sides by human seeking germs, shielded against infection and death only by a chemical technology that enables us to keep killing them off. We are instructed to spray dissinfectants everywhere, into the air of our bedrooms and kitchens and with special energy into bathrooms, since it is our very own germs that seem the worst kind. We explode clouds of aerosol, mixed for good luck with deoderants, into our noses, mouths, underarms, priviledged crannies -- even into the intimate insides of our telephones. We apply potent antibiotics to minor scratches and seal them with plastic. Plastic is the new protector; we wrap the already plastic tumblers of hotel rooms in more plastic, and seal the toilet seats like state secrets, after irradiating them with ultraviolet light. We live in a world where the microbes are always trying to get at us, to tear us cell from cell, and we only stay alive through diligence and fear.
We still think of human disease as the work of an organized, modernized kind of demonology, in which the bacteria are the most centrally placed of our adversaries. We assume they must somehow relish what they do. They come after us for profit, and there are so many of them that disease seems inevitable, a natural part of the human condition; if we succeed in eliminating one kind of disease there will always be a new one at hand, waiting to take its place.
These are paranoid delusions on a societal scale, explainable in part by our need for enemies, and in part by what things used to be like.
--Lewis Thomas
Orginally printed in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Reprinted in the Book of the Month Club's "A Long Line of Cells". (Highly recommended)
Naaaaah! The only thing I miss about punch cards was the addition of "Do not fold, spindle or mutilate" to the language. We had a lot of fun with that phrase.
Actually, come to think of it, we did have a bit of fun folding, spindling and mutilating as well.
We just do it far more efficiently than we could've otherwise.
Yes, this is something I appreciate about style sheets, as I am not a web designer, but an independant "document processor." So most of my web work is in editing and modifying existing pages. CSS certainly makes that work a damned sight easier when used well.
And here I thought it was because we are the computer Brahmins.
KFG
Re:CSS, oh how I love thee...
on
Core CSS (2nd ed.)
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Well, actually, web design was meant to be was at browser level, allowing the user to alter the display to his own taste.
Companies, such as the one you prsumable work for, and the desktop publishing people charged with putting forth official company documents weren't happy about that arrangement, so times have changed.
That said, about two years ago I got my ass chewed out here for applying the old rules. Since that time I have come to appreciate CSS myself.
I'm still not crazy about the web being "brochurified" though.
Had she just come forward and admitted there was an improper trade she'd have paid a fine and everyone would have moved along.
Actually, it's exactly the other way around. She has been convicted for what she said.
If she had simply remained silent there would have been no crime.
Nor do I at all confuse "innocent" with "found guilty," and have posted previously on the difference between the two.
O.J. is not "Innocent". He is also "Not Guilty."
One is a statement of fact, the other a statement of legal finding.
Martha Stewart is still, in the legal sense, 100% innocent of violating law with regards to insider trading (notwithstanding the above mentioned civil action by the SEC, where the worst penalty she faces is being found "Liable," which finding has nothing to do with guilt or innocence, thus the lowered level on burden of proof in such cases).
She has been convicted of lying. For speaking up. Which she was under no compulsion to do.
Bill Gates, et all, in the meantime, falsified evidence during trial and presented it as sworn testimony, over a charge they were found guilty of, and the end result was censure of the judge for getting publicly pissed off about it after trial and the slap on the wrist given to Microsoft reduced to being flailed once with a wet noodle.
Not a very hard wet noodle either.
No one was disbarred, no one went to jail, no one was even charged with perjury.
I'm no fan of Ms. Stewart. So far as I can tell she's an arrogant prick who thinks rules only apply to other people. I am biased by not knowing her, but knowing people who know her, who think she's an arrogant prick who thinks rules only apply to other people. In the Hamptons she had created more social discord than everyone else put together. If someone is making a fuss about someone not obeying some zoning law or other, it's likely to be Martha. If someone is making a fuss because she's being asked to obey some zoning law or other, it's Martha.
I stand partially corrected. There is an outstanding complaint for redress of grievence against her. A suit brought forth by the SEC. Not a charge.
One of the obvious reasons for taking this approach in pursuing a civil penalty, but not a criminal, is because they don't have enough evidence for a conviction of criminal wrong doing.
Ah, but there's a difference. Martha didn't violate any SEC law, so far as anyone can tell and has never been charged with such.
What she did was lie about her guilt, and that's what she is facing jail time over.
No, wait, that's not right. She didn't lie about her guilt, because she was innocent. Ok, so, what she's facing jailtime over is lying about her innocence.
No, that can't be right either, because she was innocent.
Honestly, I have a friend with full dentures who says she's never been happier in her life. No more pain or discomfort, and when they need work she simply sends them out.
I'd consider this step just the first phase though. What they need to figure out is how to inject a current root with cells that turn a tooth into a "baby" tooth that loosens and falls out on its own, and then is replaced. Sort of like the "Shark Model," only different.
What I found was not impressive at all; it could take years for me to successfully sue my former employer and the onus for proof was on me.
This is exactly the same as in the US. Of course the onus of proof is on you. You are the accussor, they are the defender. They are innocent until you show otherwise, which is as it should be, however much that might not be working in your favor at the moment.
If it were otherwise we'd all just go around accussing everybody of everything and collecting checks from them.
. ..some stranger offering me unofficial service packs.
As opposed to the strangers offering you nats and firewalls?
KFG
Re:Why I don't take this organization seriously...
on
Swedish Pirate Demo
·
· Score: 1
They at the very least wish to get rid of copyrights so they can perform software piracy without a fear of getting caught.
Well, at the very least they are fighting for a world in which you couldn't have typed that sentence without realizing it's an oxymoron.
So, even if they don't have a chance in hell of abolishing copyright, perhaps they can have some effect on the public's awareness of the philosophical questions of same.
Slashdot Mirror
Though why build it with old circa 1980s Mac parts instead of present tech escapes me.
Because it's there.
KFG
Dude, you obviously have never tried to sleep in a motorcycle.
KFG
Actually, I think you'll find that 150 million people in the United States alone claim British heritage. Did I not mention that I was one of them? Was not that actually part of my point, that our heritage was British?
KFG
Naaaah, not vapourware, because it really does exist. It's more like ignoreware. If they kept ignoring it things would work out ok. One can dream.
But yes, it is a rather old story. Last year my mom asked me if I'd heard of it and wondered if it were something she should invest in.
If my mom has heard of it as an investment opportunity it's definately old news.
I told her what it was being promoted as useful for and she decided she didn't want to encourage that sort of shit with her money.
KFG
Oh yeah, like, that's exactly what I want. Lying in bed with my girlfriend watching p0rn and then not getting laid.
I think you might want to rethink that plan Sparky.
KFG
So is it your opinion then that white, British descended, Kiwis have the history of the Maori as their heritage?
Since there are a few surviving Maori left there might be some discussion on the matter, and perhaps some hard feelings over it too.
I really don't see the modern, white Kiwis gathering in the town square for a massive fucking for fertility session (a practice that, personally, I think makes a lot more sense than killing someone for fertility) as part of his "heritage." If the Maori tried it today I rather suspect their heritage would see them all in jail. There's a conflict of heritage here.
As a white, British descended North American I can understand that if I started claiming heritage rights to a Mohawk burial ground/sacred site some modern Mohawk might well think I was rather out of line, seeing as not a single one of my antecedents had anything to do with it.
On the other hand, I rather doubt that any of the Native Americans would particularly object to my building a Stonehenge (although I'm more inclined to a Nerfhenge myself) replica here because they would perceive it as part of my British heritage. If you objected you'd be being an asshole, because my ancestors lay there under the stars and listened to tales of the elders and have at least as much claim to it as yours.
Whereas if I wanted to celebrate the life and traditions of my North American ancestors I could, well, move into a tenement building in Harlem and then go to a moving picture. I think I'll pass. It lacks something as an ancestral ritual.
For the majority of New Zealanders Stonehenge is their heritage and their purely New Zealand heritage goes back no farther than the mid 1800s.
What would you have them do, kill a native, build a clerk's office and a railroad to celebrate their heritage?
Should the Maori celebrate the Crusade of Richard I as part of their heritage, or The Tower? That would seem to be exactly the sort of thing you're objecting to. The road goes both ways.
Yes, New Zealand is an awesome place. Yes, it has a rich cultural heritage, but that cultural heritage is not shared by its populace until completely modern times.
KFG
Yes, but my personal observation is that, unlike in the movies, when stupid people try to do evil they cause even more trouble for us than they'd actually intended, without even getting what they want, rendering the whole exercise pointless for everybody.
Which is what makes it stupid.
KFG
. . .somebody is really stoopid.
In meatspace people don't like to make bets with me anymore. I have an aversion to gambling, thus I only take sucker bets. People learn.
I'm inclined to think I'd put money on that hypothesis.
KFG
And never mind thae fact that people can be both stupid and evil plotters. Now that's scary.
KFG
Well, I guess I'm an ubergeek then, because as I've posted before, he's only halfway there. He needs copies of all that stuff offsight as well.
A safety deposit box can useful for such things, or even just a friend. He keeps yours, you keep his. The meatspace version of posting it to an ftp site and letting everyone mirror it. Hey, maybe he's got some pr0n you haven't seen yet.
Keeping duplicates of such records in storage is also one of the traditional roles of the family lawyer, if anyone out there is still so quaint as to have one of those. If not maybe you should think about getting one, because he's going to be the guy who takes care of your will.
Papers, passwords (in a sealed envelope to be opened in the event of your death), etc go to your lawyer. You also designate an executor. That's the family member/friend you wish to see carry out the provisions of your will. The executor gets the envelope of passwords and instructions for what to do with them from the lawyer, and carries them out.
It's really all fairly standard stuff. The inclusion of computer files doesn't alter things at all really. People have been dying for years.
KFG
No one ever said that being a jerk couldn't be profitable.
KFG
Watching television, you'd think we lived at bay, in total jeopardy, surrounded on all sides by human seeking germs, shielded against infection and death only by a chemical technology that enables us to keep killing them off. We are instructed to spray dissinfectants everywhere, into the air of our bedrooms and kitchens and with special energy into bathrooms, since it is our very own germs that seem the worst kind. We explode clouds of aerosol, mixed for good luck with deoderants, into our noses, mouths, underarms, priviledged crannies -- even into the intimate insides of our telephones. We apply potent antibiotics to minor scratches and seal them with plastic. Plastic is the new protector; we wrap the already plastic tumblers of hotel rooms in more plastic, and seal the toilet seats like state secrets, after irradiating them with ultraviolet light. We live in a world where the microbes are always trying to get at us, to tear us cell from cell, and we only stay alive through diligence and fear.
We still think of human disease as the work of an organized, modernized kind of demonology, in which the bacteria are the most centrally placed of our adversaries. We assume they must somehow relish what they do. They come after us for profit, and there are so many of them that disease seems inevitable, a natural part of the human condition; if we succeed in eliminating one kind of disease there will always be a new one at hand, waiting to take its place.
These are paranoid delusions on a societal scale, explainable in part by our need for enemies, and in part by what things used to be like.
--Lewis Thomas
Orginally printed in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Reprinted in the Book of the Month Club's "A Long Line of Cells". (Highly recommended)
KFG
Naaaaah! The only thing I miss about punch cards was the addition of "Do not fold, spindle or mutilate" to the language. We had a lot of fun with that phrase.
Actually, come to think of it, we did have a bit of fun folding, spindling and mutilating as well.
KFG
We just do it far more efficiently than we could've otherwise.
Yes, this is something I appreciate about style sheets, as I am not a web designer, but an independant "document processor." So most of my web work is in editing and modifying existing pages. CSS certainly makes that work a damned sight easier when used well.
KFG
And here I thought it was because we are the computer Brahmins.
KFG
Well, actually, web design was meant to be was at browser level, allowing the user to alter the display to his own taste.
Companies, such as the one you prsumable work for, and the desktop publishing people charged with putting forth official company documents weren't happy about that arrangement, so times have changed.
That said, about two years ago I got my ass chewed out here for applying the old rules. Since that time I have come to appreciate CSS myself.
I'm still not crazy about the web being "brochurified" though.
KFG
Had she just come forward and admitted there was an improper trade she'd have paid a fine and everyone would have moved along.
Actually, it's exactly the other way around. She has been convicted for what she said.
If she had simply remained silent there would have been no crime.
Nor do I at all confuse "innocent" with "found guilty," and have posted previously on the difference between the two.
O.J. is not "Innocent". He is also "Not Guilty."
One is a statement of fact, the other a statement of legal finding.
Martha Stewart is still, in the legal sense, 100% innocent of violating law with regards to insider trading (notwithstanding the above mentioned civil action by the SEC, where the worst penalty she faces is being found "Liable," which finding has nothing to do with guilt or innocence, thus the lowered level on burden of proof in such cases).
She has been convicted of lying. For speaking up. Which she was under no compulsion to do.
Bill Gates, et all, in the meantime, falsified evidence during trial and presented it as sworn testimony, over a charge they were found guilty of, and the end result was censure of the judge for getting publicly pissed off about it after trial and the slap on the wrist given to Microsoft reduced to being flailed once with a wet noodle.
Not a very hard wet noodle either.
No one was disbarred, no one went to jail, no one was even charged with perjury.
I'm no fan of Ms. Stewart. So far as I can tell she's an arrogant prick who thinks rules only apply to other people. I am biased by not knowing her, but knowing people who know her, who think she's an arrogant prick who thinks rules only apply to other people. In the Hamptons she had created more social discord than everyone else put together. If someone is making a fuss about someone not obeying some zoning law or other, it's likely to be Martha. If someone is making a fuss because she's being asked to obey some zoning law or other, it's Martha.
I don't care for people like that.
Especially when it's the government.
KFG
I stand partially corrected. There is an outstanding complaint for redress of grievence against her. A suit brought forth by the SEC. Not a charge.
One of the obvious reasons for taking this approach in pursuing a civil penalty, but not a criminal, is because they don't have enough evidence for a conviction of criminal wrong doing.
KFG
Ah, but there's a difference. Martha didn't violate any SEC law, so far as anyone can tell and has never been charged with such.
What she did was lie about her guilt, and that's what she is facing jail time over.
No, wait, that's not right. She didn't lie about her guilt, because she was innocent. Ok, so, what she's facing jailtime over is lying about her innocence.
No, that can't be right either, because she was innocent.
Ok, so maybe your wife has a point.
KFG
Sure, set a jerk to catch a jerk. Jerks who repent often spend their time in attonement.
That doesn't mean we should ignore his having been a jerk, but neither should we hold that against his works of attonement.
KFG
Funny, yes, but one of the first things that occured to me is that there's going to be quite a market for "celebrity" teeth.
Nevermind that what you see in the pictures is tens of thousands of dollars and years worth of man made artificiality in a lot of cases.
KFG
Honestly, I have a friend with full dentures who says she's never been happier in her life. No more pain or discomfort, and when they need work she simply sends them out.
I'd consider this step just the first phase though. What they need to figure out is how to inject a current root with cells that turn a tooth into a "baby" tooth that loosens and falls out on its own, and then is replaced. Sort of like the "Shark Model," only different.
KFG
What I found was not impressive at all; it could take years for me to successfully sue my former employer and the onus for proof was on me.
This is exactly the same as in the US. Of course the onus of proof is on you. You are the accussor, they are the defender. They are innocent until you show otherwise, which is as it should be, however much that might not be working in your favor at the moment.
If it were otherwise we'd all just go around accussing everybody of everything and collecting checks from them.
KFG
. . .some stranger offering me unofficial service packs.
As opposed to the strangers offering you nats and firewalls?
KFG
They at the very least wish to get rid of copyrights so they can perform software piracy without a fear of getting caught.
Well, at the very least they are fighting for a world in which you couldn't have typed that sentence without realizing it's an oxymoron.
So, even if they don't have a chance in hell of abolishing copyright, perhaps they can have some effect on the public's awareness of the philosophical questions of same.
KFG