George is NOT Sulu. The creator of Star Trek created Sulu. Just because George played a great Sulu, he does not define the character. Strange how a homosexual character doesn't want his seemingly open homosexual character portrayed as such.
The point is that Sulu *wasn't* portrayed as homosexual until now; quite the opposite, as Takei says, he was portrayed as heterosexual.
I'm sure the move to make him gay was well intended, and even originally a tribute to Takei, but that's the problem. My first thought was, "Oh, they're making Sulu gay because Takei happened to be gay". It was just too obvious.
This falls into the longstanding trap of equating the actor's sexuality with that of the character. No-one assumes that Anthony Hopkins is a flesh-eating serial killer even though he portrayed one on film. Granted, being able to be openly gay at all is an improvement on the Bad Old Days when it would have destroyed someone's career, but it's still artificially limiting to suggest that gay actor => gay character.
Also, heterosexual characters often don't have a deal made of their sexuality if it's not part of the plot; the same should apply to those that aren't.
I don't think that Takei has a monopoly on Sulu merely because he originally played him, but he was involved with Roddenberry, and is still strongly associated with the character. The fact is that they originally tried to get him involved- even if it's likely they expected his approval- so one can't complain that Takei doesn't have the right to speak here.
Is it just a bizarre (and unintentional) coincidence that the word "ginger" is a single letter swap away from the racial epithet people were obviously referencing?:-O
But something happened between "Toothbrush" and TFI Friday because he seemed to become very dislikeable to me at that point. Hard to say why, but I think there was a subtle but obvious shift from him giving the impression that he was having fun and doing indulgent things for the viewer's (vicarious) enjoyment to giving the impression that the whole thing revolved around Him.
This was shortly before his reputation for egotistical and diva-like behaviour (e.g. not bothering to turn up for presenting duties on his radio show, getting other people to do TFI, etc. etc.) started getting into the press.
To be fair, not everything I've heard about him has been bad, and some reports in recent years have led me to revise my opinion. OTOH, some of the news reports about Top Gear suggest the egocentric, diva-like behaviour is still in play. Though to be fair, he at least came across quite well when he announced his resignation.
And there is a reason why pretty much nobody remembers the last two.
Really? Yeah, I'm sure there are quite a few people who don't "remember" them and that's because it was 15+ years ago and a lot of the current fanboys wouldn't have been old enough to even be even watching then.
Anyone who actually watched Top Gear at the time would certainly remember Quentin Wilson and Tiff Needell.
(Pre-emption of snide comments about all three viewers or something; as I commented elsewhere at its peak in the mid-to-late 90s it was a very popular programme by ordinary standards- to the extent it got its own spin-off magazine- and made Clarkson into a well-known personality).
One other thing- in hindsight it's also clear that Clarkson was more palatable on the old Top Gear because you got him in smaller doses. He was just one of a team of presenters and didn't appear on every bloody item; much better balanced. It wasn't All Clarkson, All The Time. It wasn't *about* Professional MegaBoor Clarkson (TM) And His Laddish Chums.
But then, as I said above, despite the similarity in name and nominal subject matter, the two incarnations are fundmentally different, so it's probably meaningless to compare them.
(#) Footnote that I meant to include in parent comment; Yes, I do give a lot of credit to this. I've seen clips of some early Top Gear from the late-1970s with Noel Edmonds (FFS) and it's needlessly slow, dry and tedious. Being factual doesn't mean you have to be *that* boring.
Clarkson,Wilson and Needell. But that was when it was about cars.
Yep.
It's easy to forget now, but the "old" Top Gear was itself pretty successful in its 90s heyday. Not to the extent that people banged on and on and on and on about it to the tedious extent they do with the post-2003 version. But still a well-known touchstone of 1990s television that was responsible for making Clarkson popular in the first place and strongly associated with him.
It feels strange to say in hindsight (given that nowadays it's clear that Clarkson is the epitome of the boorish, tedious, right-wing, middle-aged, Middle English tosser), but I actually enjoyed him during his time on the original show, possibly because he was actually doing his ******* job of reviewing cars in an entertaining manner. In fact, he was a good presenter on the other stuff I saw him in (admittedly car-related shows he'd obviously got because of his Top Gear fame). I'd even say Top Gear lost something when he left. (Along with some other changes, I clearly remember enjoying it less in the year or two running up to its cancellation).
Problem was that by the time he'd come back for the 2003 relaunch, he'd gone from being a presenter who said non-PC things that were often pretty amusing- such as the infamous "good enough to snap knicker elastic at 50 paces" description of one car- to someone whose defining characteristic was Professional Non-PC Merchant. Not in the service of being amusing, but for its own sake. And Clarkson was famous enough by this point that it was now about him; you can't watch him as a presenter any more because he isn't.
This brings me to the most fundamental difference in the relaunched show (even more so than the format change). Old Top Gear was a factual magazine show about cars that was presented in an entertaining manner. (#) The new Top Gear was- and is- an entertainment show that happens to revolve around cars, quite happy to sideline or twist any secondary factual aspects if it gets in the way of some stuffed shirt getting vicarious thrills or amusement through The Clarkson and His Two Mates in Car Porn Hijinks Show before he returns to work in his Vauxhall Astra the following day.
A lot of people obviously enjoy this- good for them. I don't have any time for it personally.
It could be an interesting idea in linguistics and data mining to identify potential workplace threats and troubled workers.
Being an "interesting" idea from an intellectual point of view says absolutely *nothing* about whether it's a good idea or not.
There shouldn't be an expectation of privacy in workplace emails. If you want that, use a private account to discuss things.
Okay; the fact you're expressing that pat response here suggests that you don't understand (or weren't paying attention to) the difference between this and the typical (straightforward) "employers are reading my workplace email" thread. I actually wonder whether you even got the point of the story at all.
This isn't spying on people directly expressing hostile or subversive thoughts against the company, this is using it on (potentially) superficially work-related and neutral email content to determine the underlying psychological attitude of the employee.
Given that the employee is probably *required* to use email in this manner as part of their job, and given that this isn't something they're likely to be consciously doing (else they'd avoid doing it, duh) it's not as if they have a choice in the matter.
Whether this is good or bad comes down to how you react to an alert.
The issue here- and the reason most people quite rightly expressed the (supposedly) "kneejerk" reaction you dismiss- is that they already know based on past experience how large corporations or similar entities- i.e. the people likely to be buying this technology- will probably use this sort of power.
For genuinely troubled employees, however, this might actually be useful if it leads to a confidential meeting with a third party or ombudsman who tries to help the employee.
Yeah, because large US-style corporations are well-known for protecting employees with problems and won't simply use this as an early warning on someone they can get rid of before they become a problem. Or might not have, but why take the chance?
I saw the example in the story. A nice, touchy-feely way to justify an intrusive technology, but let's get real here.
If it's used to actually help troubled employers who might not reach out for help on their own, it could actually help people while protecting the company. If used properly, it's a good thing.
The question is, how likely to you think it is to be used "properly" in your sense of the word?
Your problem is that you seem to view the technology in a purely abstract sense- i.e. one that could theoretically be used for good or bad. Well, theoretically it could be, yes.
However, your so-called "tinfoil hat crowd" knows damn well that such technologies don't exist in isolation, know what type of people it's been designed for, and the type of people and organisations it's likely to be sold to. Based on past experience, it's not unreasonable to draw such conclusions on how it's likely to be used.
So, you can keep expressing your (repeated) dismissal of its critics as "paranoid delusional", but that doesn't make your counter-argument any stronger.
I've never tried Hershey's chocolate, but I've heard a lot of people from the United Kingdom really don't like the flavour.
There are a number of explanations, most of which do involve butyric acid as Threni has already mentioned. Specifically:-
Another key difference between US and UK chocolate is that much US chocolate uses milk that has undergone lipolysis, a process that partially breaks down the fatty acids in milk. This is another historical anomaly in the evolution of chocolate production. In the early 20th century, the process of partially souring milk through lipolysis was used to stabilize milk chocolate, as the resulting milk chocolate could be stored for longer periods of time before its taste changed for the worse. [..] The advantage of the process is that further breakdown of fats in milk is slowed, and subsequent fermentation is reduced. The "milk" taste also lasts longer, before either fading or turning into bad-tasting compounds. The down-side is that the process releases butyric acid [my emphasis], one of the fatty acids present in milk. Butyric acid is the fat component responsible for the smell of parmesan cheese and baby vomit.
In short, US production techniques improve the long life stability at the expense of producing compounds that- to those not used to them- smell like baby sick et al, but to those brought up on baby-sick-flavoured-"chocolate" since childhood probably seems normal.
I guess I was lucky when I tried some imported Reese's peanut butter "Christmas tree" confectionery, and the "chocolate" coating- can't even remember for sure if it was "chocolate" (by the US definition of the word!) or "chocolate flavor"- merely tasted like sweetened wax.
Truth to be told I *hate* movies longer than 90 mins.
I thought I was the only one. If I'm doing something else, it's not so bad, but to sit on my backside and watch a film for two hours?
Okay, to be fair, even 90 minutes is pushing it for me. It's not so much that my attention span has got worse in recent years- it probably has- but that I realised I never really had the patience to sit down for an extended period and watch a film.
There was an unprecedent 4% swing in the polls from two weeks before the poll to the results on the day.
I'll note that the person claiming "This is utter horseshit" is the same person who thinks you can prove there was an "unprecedent 4% swing" by comparing an opinion poll to the actual result.
I've got news for you; that isn't remotely legitimate. Pre-election polls are notorious for getting things wrong, and frequently do. Even if the answers given were 100% truthful and reflective of how they'd actually have voted on that particular day (#), it's notoriously difficult for pollsters to get a completely representative, unbiased cross-section.
Given that the final on-the-day YouGov poll before the election also predicted a 52/48 outcome in favour of remain, do you think *that* indicated a genuine 4% swing between then and the election itself?
Or, more likely, that the polls got it wrong?
Some of your other points are more reasonable, but while it's clear that age wasn't the *only* factor- and that I never claimed that every older voter was a "Leave" supporter nor every younger one a "Remain"- most surveys indicate that in general and everything else being equal- "Leave" support tended to increase with voter age.
(#) Something I'll note not only requires the person saying it to be truthful, but to know for sure how they'd vote if they were genuinely in the ballot box making that decision rather than answering someone in the street, on the phone or wherever.
Poe's Law in play; I can't figure out if this is a troll, a parody or for real.
I'm fine with slapping the erasmus generation down a step or two.
The "Erasmus generation"? Exactly what proportion of students do you think take part in the Erasmus (foreign-exchange) programme anyway? Doubt it's more than a small percentage, and what's wrong with gaining experience of the market in which you are- or were- supposed to be a part of anyway?
Yeah really. *I had no idea that Trump would actually become president [telegraph.co.uk] just because I voted for him!*
Trump analogy usage aside (#), the interesting thing about that "regretful Brexit voter" story is it appears on the Daily Telegraph website; the Telegraph being the quintessential "quality" broadsheet rag of the right-wing, conservative, "Middle England"- and indeed, "Little Englander"- demographic whose stereotypical reader is a retired colonel in the English home counties.
In short, the paper whose readers- and editors- you would expect to be among the most enthusiastic Brexiteers.
Guess now it's all over there isn't much to lose, given that even Nigel Farage announced the morning after that the "£350m a week for the NHS" figure the Brexit campaign had been spewing about was actually BS. (##)(The same figure that pretty much any unbiased observers had been saying was BS for weeks, but if you repeat a lie enough...)
Anyway, yeah. I bloody regret that she and her countrymen voted that way as well. I also regret that there wasn't an easy way to have her live with the consequences of her decision while I didn't have to. Believe me, I've no sympathy for any of the Little Englanders who for years swallowed (and regurgitated) the endless anti-EU propaganda that used it as a whipping boy for everything under the sun while failing to acknowledge its successes. Oh, what? You didn't really want to leave the EU despite years of saying you did? You didn't realise the consequences of voting leave?
Fuck off. It's too late for you to start crying now. You shat the bed; now you have to lie in it.
(#) It's a legitimate analogy, and makes a point I already suspected regarding Trump voters' "we're voting for him to punish the establishment" mentality. But as someone who lives in Scotland- i.e. currently part of the UK- you'll forgive me if I'm currently more interested in the actual story than its reduction into an analogy for US-centric purposes.
(##) As if- even if they *did* have that extra £350m- UKIP would spend it on the NHS they're ideologically opposed to. (Given UKIP's stereotypcal popularity with defecting members of the right wing of the Conservative party- a faction which is itself known for being blatantly anti-NHS, what the hell would anyone expect?!)
...the very small number of people genuinely unable to vote (despite their best efforts...
Not so small! British expats -e.g. those living in other EU countries- weren't allowed to vote, nor people aged between 16 and eighteen, even when they were allowed to vote in the Scottish referendum.
Past numbers for 2010 showed a 51.8% turnout for 18-24 year olds versus 65% overall turnout rate. So it's indeed a lower turnout, however is that large enough to have made a difference? How many votes would you get from 13% more 18-24 year olds? Enough to change the final results?
There's no 65% limit just because that was the average turnout. The maximum possible turnout for the 18-24 year old age group in that case (or indeed, for any other age group) is 100%. (#)
One might argue that turnout in other groups could theoretically increase to 100% as well and it would all come out in the wash. Which might be true to some extent, but doesn't automatically follow.
(#) Pedantry about the very small number of people genuinely unable to vote (despite their best efforts) aside.
I keep seeing this strange, case closed line of thinking. UK leaving the EU does not prohibit joining or creating another governing body.
Er, what exactly do you think the point being made was?
Maybe I have to spell it out for you, but anyone who is "finally checking what all the fuss was about" with questions like "What is the EU?" *after* the polls for the EU referendum have closed has has left it rather too late for their newfound interest to be of any relevance. (Perhaps there's a metaphor for situations like that, don't you think... ?)
I'm not sure what you think the hypothetical possibility of the UK joining "another governing body" has to do with that?
Silly as it would be, another vote could put the UK right back in the EU.
Yes, that would be silly, and it's not going to happen.
Turnout was almost 73% of eligible voters. That's a very large number.
That means 27% of people of voting age didn't bother to vote, and I'm quite willing to bet that this non-voting group was skewed towards the younger end of the spectrum. (#)
Thus, it's probably fair to say that if enough of those non-voters *had* actually bothered to vote, the result would have gone moderately but clearly the other way.
As it stands, this is all academic now. But let's bear these people in mind- those who had a reasonable opportunity to vote, but didn't bother- because they have no right- not now, not in ten, twenty, forty years time, not ever- to complain about the consequences of this decision or anything remotely related to it.
You didn't vote? Then you voted Leave. End of story. STFU.
(#) This is almost always true, but it's quite clear in this case that older voters were not only more anti-EU and likely to support Leave, but also more actively cared about it than younger voters' tendency to be more pro-EU but generally passive. An illustration of how those older voters skewed the debate was the endless stream of newspaper letters, commenters on Radio 4 et al explaining that "I voted for a common *market* in 1975, blah blah blah". To put this into perspective, anyone old enough to have had a vote in 1975 would have to be almost sixty at the very least today. Yes, those people making the most noise about Europe are those already approaching- if not well into- retirement age, with their careers behind them and a "Back to the 50s" post-war mentality. Yet the consequences of their choice will dictate the future of a 19-year-old student long after they die off in 15-30 years time.
Still, if that student couldn't be bothered to vote anyway, he can STFU too.
Not everyone who could vote did vote. Maybe those who abstained are finally checking what all the fuss was about.
"What is a horse?"
Answer: Something related to the stable door people have been discussing for the past several months. Both are too late for you to give a fuck about now.
It's disgusting how a referendum of such significance- far more important than a general election- has been centered around and reported in terms of the internal, up-its-own-arse politicking of the Conservative (Tory) party. Disgusting, but not surprising.
As you say, the whole thing started out as a political sop, designed purely to placate its own right-wing "Eurosceptic" members.
I voted "Yes" in the Scottish independence referendum in 2014 for a number of reasons. A major one was that I knew the EU referendum was on the horizon and I wasn't prepared to risk Scotland being dragged out of the EU by Tories playing political football with the country's future simply to placate their own voter base in the south east of England.
Back then, I still thought it was far more likely than not that the UK would remain within the EU; I just wasn't prepared to risk it.
I look forward to the response of every politician that scaremongered about whether an independent Scotland's position would have the right to remain within the EU during the 2014 referendum. The same people who convinced Scotland to remain a part of the UK (#) and to accept the results of being in bed with an elephant that's barely aware of its existence most of the time. Whether that outcome was the Tory government majority across the UK as a whole in the 2015 general election rendering the SNP's overwhelming majority of MPs in Scotland irrelevant (the Tories got *one* isolated seat here). Or whether that was Scotland being dragged out of the EU against its will by a party and political process that has long been centered around the south-east of England.
I'm not suggesting that all these people- especially not the Labour supporters- wanted a Tory government or the UK out of the EU (Scotland against its will). I'm saying that they placed their own UK-centric interests first, knowing the risk to Scotland. Especially the Labour supporters.
I wonder how many of those people will have the nerve to show their faces now that the scaremongering outcome they claimed would happen if Scotland voted "Yes" to independence has come true thanks to their "No" side winning and the Tory-centric English vote dragging it out anyway.
(#) In particular, I'm thinking of the utterly worthless Labour party (until recently dominant in Scotland) that only got back into power in the 90s- admittedly very successfully- by selling out everything they stood for in order to appeal to Middle England, turning themselves into little more than red Tories. The same Labour party that may now have elected the stereotypically left-wing Jeremy Corbyn as leader (##) but don't stand a cat's chance in hell of getting elected by that same Middle England electorate and can be dismissed as irrelevant.
(##) Someone who at least appeared principled at first- even if I didn't agree with much of what he stood for- but was so utterly lukewarm, half-baked and borderline invisible in his support for "Remain" that one suspects this may have been intentional. (Corbyn was well-known for his Euroscepticism, but claimed to have switched to remain with some reservations. Please excuse my scepticism.)
Finally, a "businessman" so honest to admit that he's a scammer.
I picked up on that quote as well, and you've got it the wrong way round. He's someone who - at heart- knows damn well he's a worthless, low-rent pissy little thief/conman and is trying to rationalise his behaviour and kid himself (more than anyone else) that he's a "businessman".
Slashdot Mirror
George is NOT Sulu. The creator of Star Trek created Sulu. Just because George played a great Sulu, he does not define the character. Strange how a homosexual character doesn't want his seemingly open homosexual character portrayed as such.
The point is that Sulu *wasn't* portrayed as homosexual until now; quite the opposite, as Takei says, he was portrayed as heterosexual.
I'm sure the move to make him gay was well intended, and even originally a tribute to Takei, but that's the problem. My first thought was, "Oh, they're making Sulu gay because Takei happened to be gay". It was just too obvious.
This falls into the longstanding trap of equating the actor's sexuality with that of the character. No-one assumes that Anthony Hopkins is a flesh-eating serial killer even though he portrayed one on film. Granted, being able to be openly gay at all is an improvement on the Bad Old Days when it would have destroyed someone's career, but it's still artificially limiting to suggest that gay actor => gay character.
Also, heterosexual characters often don't have a deal made of their sexuality if it's not part of the plot; the same should apply to those that aren't.
I don't think that Takei has a monopoly on Sulu merely because he originally played him, but he was involved with Roddenberry, and is still strongly associated with the character. The fact is that they originally tried to get him involved- even if it's likely they expected his approval- so one can't complain that Takei doesn't have the right to speak here.
You got old. You lost your sense of humour. I remember when you used to be cool.
Damn, even *I* knew I was never cool!
Is it just a bizarre (and unintentional) coincidence that the word "ginger" is a single letter swap away from the racial epithet people were obviously referencing? :-O
Yes, he's been broadcasting for years and years and he's always been annoying.
He seemed to be reasonably likeable in his early career; first as the presenter of The Big Breakfast in the early 1990s, followed by the short-lived Don't Forget Your Toothbrush.
But something happened between "Toothbrush" and TFI Friday because he seemed to become very dislikeable to me at that point. Hard to say why, but I think there was a subtle but obvious shift from him giving the impression that he was having fun and doing indulgent things for the viewer's (vicarious) enjoyment to giving the impression that the whole thing revolved around Him.
This was shortly before his reputation for egotistical and diva-like behaviour (e.g. not bothering to turn up for presenting duties on his radio show, getting other people to do TFI, etc. etc.) started getting into the press.
To be fair, not everything I've heard about him has been bad, and some reports in recent years have led me to revise my opinion. OTOH, some of the news reports about Top Gear suggest the egocentric, diva-like behaviour is still in play. Though to be fair, he at least came across quite well when he announced his resignation.
And there is a reason why pretty much nobody remembers the last two.
Really? Yeah, I'm sure there are quite a few people who don't "remember" them and that's because it was 15+ years ago and a lot of the current fanboys wouldn't have been old enough to even be even watching then.
Anyone who actually watched Top Gear at the time would certainly remember Quentin Wilson and Tiff Needell.
(Pre-emption of snide comments about all three viewers or something; as I commented elsewhere at its peak in the mid-to-late 90s it was a very popular programme by ordinary standards- to the extent it got its own spin-off magazine- and made Clarkson into a well-known personality).
One other thing- in hindsight it's also clear that Clarkson was more palatable on the old Top Gear because you got him in smaller doses. He was just one of a team of presenters and didn't appear on every bloody item; much better balanced. It wasn't All Clarkson, All The Time. It wasn't *about* Professional MegaBoor Clarkson (TM) And His Laddish Chums.
But then, as I said above, despite the similarity in name and nominal subject matter, the two incarnations are fundmentally different, so it's probably meaningless to compare them.
(#) Footnote that I meant to include in parent comment; Yes, I do give a lot of credit to this. I've seen clips of some early Top Gear from the late-1970s with Noel Edmonds (FFS) and it's needlessly slow, dry and tedious. Being factual doesn't mean you have to be *that* boring.
Clarkson,Wilson and Needell. But that was when it was about cars.
Yep.
It's easy to forget now, but the "old" Top Gear was itself pretty successful in its 90s heyday. Not to the extent that people banged on and on and on and on about it to the tedious extent they do with the post-2003 version. But still a well-known touchstone of 1990s television that was responsible for making Clarkson popular in the first place and strongly associated with him.
It feels strange to say in hindsight (given that nowadays it's clear that Clarkson is the epitome of the boorish, tedious, right-wing, middle-aged, Middle English tosser), but I actually enjoyed him during his time on the original show, possibly because he was actually doing his ******* job of reviewing cars in an entertaining manner. In fact, he was a good presenter on the other stuff I saw him in (admittedly car-related shows he'd obviously got because of his Top Gear fame). I'd even say Top Gear lost something when he left. (Along with some other changes, I clearly remember enjoying it less in the year or two running up to its cancellation).
Problem was that by the time he'd come back for the 2003 relaunch, he'd gone from being a presenter who said non-PC things that were often pretty amusing- such as the infamous "good enough to snap knicker elastic at 50 paces" description of one car- to someone whose defining characteristic was Professional Non-PC Merchant. Not in the service of being amusing, but for its own sake. And Clarkson was famous enough by this point that it was now about him; you can't watch him as a presenter any more because he isn't.
This brings me to the most fundamental difference in the relaunched show (even more so than the format change). Old Top Gear was a factual magazine show about cars that was presented in an entertaining manner. (#) The new Top Gear was- and is- an entertainment show that happens to revolve around cars, quite happy to sideline or twist any secondary factual aspects if it gets in the way of some stuffed shirt getting vicarious thrills or amusement through The Clarkson and His Two Mates in Car Porn Hijinks Show before he returns to work in his Vauxhall Astra the following day.
A lot of people obviously enjoy this- good for them. I don't have any time for it personally.
It could be an interesting idea in linguistics and data mining to identify potential workplace threats and troubled workers.
Being an "interesting" idea from an intellectual point of view says absolutely *nothing* about whether it's a good idea or not.
There shouldn't be an expectation of privacy in workplace emails. If you want that, use a private account to discuss things.
Okay; the fact you're expressing that pat response here suggests that you don't understand (or weren't paying attention to) the difference between this and the typical (straightforward) "employers are reading my workplace email" thread. I actually wonder whether you even got the point of the story at all.
This isn't spying on people directly expressing hostile or subversive thoughts against the company, this is using it on (potentially) superficially work-related and neutral email content to determine the underlying psychological attitude of the employee.
Given that the employee is probably *required* to use email in this manner as part of their job, and given that this isn't something they're likely to be consciously doing (else they'd avoid doing it, duh) it's not as if they have a choice in the matter.
Whether this is good or bad comes down to how you react to an alert.
The issue here- and the reason most people quite rightly expressed the (supposedly) "kneejerk" reaction you dismiss- is that they already know based on past experience how large corporations or similar entities- i.e. the people likely to be buying this technology- will probably use this sort of power.
For genuinely troubled employees, however, this might actually be useful if it leads to a confidential meeting with a third party or ombudsman who tries to help the employee.
Yeah, because large US-style corporations are well-known for protecting employees with problems and won't simply use this as an early warning on someone they can get rid of before they become a problem. Or might not have, but why take the chance?
I saw the example in the story. A nice, touchy-feely way to justify an intrusive technology, but let's get real here.
If it's used to actually help troubled employers who might not reach out for help on their own, it could actually help people while protecting the company. If used properly, it's a good thing.
The question is, how likely to you think it is to be used "properly" in your sense of the word?
Your problem is that you seem to view the technology in a purely abstract sense- i.e. one that could theoretically be used for good or bad. Well, theoretically it could be, yes.
However, your so-called "tinfoil hat crowd" knows damn well that such technologies don't exist in isolation, know what type of people it's been designed for, and the type of people and organisations it's likely to be sold to. Based on past experience, it's not unreasonable to draw such conclusions on how it's likely to be used.
So, you can keep expressing your (repeated) dismissal of its critics as "paranoid delusional", but that doesn't make your counter-argument any stronger.
There are a number of explanations, most of which do involve butyric acid as Threni has already mentioned. Specifically:-
Another key difference between US and UK chocolate is that much US chocolate uses milk that has undergone lipolysis, a process that partially breaks down the fatty acids in milk. This is another historical anomaly in the evolution of chocolate production. In the early 20th century, the process of partially souring milk through lipolysis was used to stabilize milk chocolate, as the resulting milk chocolate could be stored for longer periods of time before its taste changed for the worse. [..] The advantage of the process is that further breakdown of fats in milk is slowed, and subsequent fermentation is reduced. The "milk" taste also lasts longer, before either fading or turning into bad-tasting compounds. The down-side is that the process releases butyric acid [my emphasis], one of the fatty acids present in milk. Butyric acid is the fat component responsible for the smell of parmesan cheese and baby vomit.
See also this article or Google American chocolate butyric.
In short, US production techniques improve the long life stability at the expense of producing compounds that- to those not used to them- smell like baby sick et al, but to those brought up on baby-sick-flavoured-"chocolate" since childhood probably seems normal.
I guess I was lucky when I tried some imported Reese's peanut butter "Christmas tree" confectionery, and the "chocolate" coating- can't even remember for sure if it was "chocolate" (by the US definition of the word!) or "chocolate flavor"- merely tasted like sweetened wax.
When you use "u" like it's a word all I see is a drooling idiot lacking in even the most basic education. Human garbage like you should be purged.
Watch out- he means it.
Prince's death a couple of months back? Not an accident as some people think- this guy really hated him for some reason I can't put my finger on.
Got caught up on the whole 50 hours of the first 5 seasons by watching it on double-speed during my morning workouts.
I taped a 20-minute workout and played it back at high speed on my machine so it only took ten minutes. I got a great workout.
Truth to be told I *hate* movies longer than 90 mins.
I thought I was the only one. If I'm doing something else, it's not so bad, but to sit on my backside and watch a film for two hours?
:-)
Okay, to be fair, even 90 minutes is pushing it for me. It's not so much that my attention span has got worse in recent years- it probably has- but that I realised I never really had the patience to sit down for an extended period and watch a film.
So maybe it's just me...
[Corbyn] was so utterly lukewarm, half-baked and borderline invisible in his support for "Remain" that one suspects this may have been intentional.
Hmm. Corbyn office 'sabotaged' EU Remain campaign - sources.
There was an unprecedent 4% swing in the polls from two weeks before the poll to the results on the day.
I'll note that the person claiming "This is utter horseshit" is the same person who thinks you can prove there was an "unprecedent 4% swing" by comparing an opinion poll to the actual result.
I've got news for you; that isn't remotely legitimate. Pre-election polls are notorious for getting things wrong, and frequently do. Even if the answers given were 100% truthful and reflective of how they'd actually have voted on that particular day (#), it's notoriously difficult for pollsters to get a completely representative, unbiased cross-section.
Given that the final on-the-day YouGov poll before the election also predicted a 52/48 outcome in favour of remain, do you think *that* indicated a genuine 4% swing between then and the election itself?
Or, more likely, that the polls got it wrong?
Some of your other points are more reasonable, but while it's clear that age wasn't the *only* factor- and that I never claimed that every older voter was a "Leave" supporter nor every younger one a "Remain"- most surveys indicate that in general and everything else being equal- "Leave" support tended to increase with voter age.
(#) Something I'll note not only requires the person saying it to be truthful, but to know for sure how they'd vote if they were genuinely in the ballot box making that decision rather than answering someone in the street, on the phone or wherever.
I'm fine with slapping the erasmus generation down a step or two.
The "Erasmus generation"? Exactly what proportion of students do you think take part in the Erasmus (foreign-exchange) programme anyway? Doubt it's more than a small percentage, and what's wrong with gaining experience of the market in which you are- or were- supposed to be a part of anyway?
Yeah really. *I had no idea that Trump would actually become president [telegraph.co.uk] just because I voted for him!*
Trump analogy usage aside (#), the interesting thing about that "regretful Brexit voter" story is it appears on the Daily Telegraph website; the Telegraph being the quintessential "quality" broadsheet rag of the right-wing, conservative, "Middle England"- and indeed, "Little Englander"- demographic whose stereotypical reader is a retired colonel in the English home counties.
In short, the paper whose readers- and editors- you would expect to be among the most enthusiastic Brexiteers.
Guess now it's all over there isn't much to lose, given that even Nigel Farage announced the morning after that the "£350m a week for the NHS" figure the Brexit campaign had been spewing about was actually BS. (##)(The same figure that pretty much any unbiased observers had been saying was BS for weeks, but if you repeat a lie enough...)
Anyway, yeah. I bloody regret that she and her countrymen voted that way as well. I also regret that there wasn't an easy way to have her live with the consequences of her decision while I didn't have to. Believe me, I've no sympathy for any of the Little Englanders who for years swallowed (and regurgitated) the endless anti-EU propaganda that used it as a whipping boy for everything under the sun while failing to acknowledge its successes. Oh, what? You didn't really want to leave the EU despite years of saying you did? You didn't realise the consequences of voting leave?
Fuck off. It's too late for you to start crying now. You shat the bed; now you have to lie in it.
(#) It's a legitimate analogy, and makes a point I already suspected regarding Trump voters' "we're voting for him to punish the establishment" mentality. But as someone who lives in Scotland- i.e. currently part of the UK- you'll forgive me if I'm currently more interested in the actual story than its reduction into an analogy for US-centric purposes.
(##) As if- even if they *did* have that extra £350m- UKIP would spend it on the NHS they're ideologically opposed to. (Given UKIP's stereotypcal popularity with defecting members of the right wing of the Conservative party- a faction which is itself known for being blatantly anti-NHS, what the hell would anyone expect?!)
...the very small number of people genuinely unable to vote (despite their best efforts...
Not so small! British expats -e.g. those living in other EU countries- weren't allowed to vote, nor people aged between 16 and eighteen, even when they were allowed to vote in the Scottish referendum.
To be clear, the hypothetical 100% turnout rate I mentioned was with respect to eligible voters- as is the generally accepted definition of voter turnout.
That said, the point you made about the effect of the ineligibility of those groups to vote was informative and worthwhile anyway.
Past numbers for 2010 showed a 51.8% turnout for 18-24 year olds versus 65% overall turnout rate. So it's indeed a lower turnout, however is that large enough to have made a difference? How many votes would you get from 13% more 18-24 year olds? Enough to change the final results?
There's no 65% limit just because that was the average turnout. The maximum possible turnout for the 18-24 year old age group in that case (or indeed, for any other age group) is 100%. (#)
One might argue that turnout in other groups could theoretically increase to 100% as well and it would all come out in the wash. Which might be true to some extent, but doesn't automatically follow.
(#) Pedantry about the very small number of people genuinely unable to vote (despite their best efforts) aside.
I keep seeing this strange, case closed line of thinking. UK leaving the EU does not prohibit joining or creating another governing body.
Er, what exactly do you think the point being made was?
Maybe I have to spell it out for you, but anyone who is "finally checking what all the fuss was about" with questions like "What is the EU?" *after* the polls for the EU referendum have closed has has left it rather too late for their newfound interest to be of any relevance. (Perhaps there's a metaphor for situations like that, don't you think... ?)
I'm not sure what you think the hypothetical possibility of the UK joining "another governing body" has to do with that?
Silly as it would be, another vote could put the UK right back in the EU.
Yes, that would be silly, and it's not going to happen.
Turnout was almost 73% of eligible voters. That's a very large number.
That means 27% of people of voting age didn't bother to vote, and I'm quite willing to bet that this non-voting group was skewed towards the younger end of the spectrum. (#)
Thus, it's probably fair to say that if enough of those non-voters *had* actually bothered to vote, the result would have gone moderately but clearly the other way.
As it stands, this is all academic now. But let's bear these people in mind- those who had a reasonable opportunity to vote, but didn't bother- because they have no right- not now, not in ten, twenty, forty years time, not ever- to complain about the consequences of this decision or anything remotely related to it.
You didn't vote? Then you voted Leave. End of story. STFU.
(#) This is almost always true, but it's quite clear in this case that older voters were not only more anti-EU and likely to support Leave, but also more actively cared about it than younger voters' tendency to be more pro-EU but generally passive. An illustration of how those older voters skewed the debate was the endless stream of newspaper letters, commenters on Radio 4 et al explaining that "I voted for a common *market* in 1975, blah blah blah". To put this into perspective, anyone old enough to have had a vote in 1975 would have to be almost sixty at the very least today. Yes, those people making the most noise about Europe are those already approaching- if not well into- retirement age, with their careers behind them and a "Back to the 50s" post-war mentality. Yet the consequences of their choice will dictate the future of a 19-year-old student long after they die off in 15-30 years time.
Still, if that student couldn't be bothered to vote anyway, he can STFU too.
Not everyone who could vote did vote. Maybe those who abstained are finally checking what all the fuss was about.
"What is a horse?"
Answer: Something related to the stable door people have been discussing for the past several months. Both are too late for you to give a fuck about now.
Push for another referendum on independence.
That's essentially what's going to happen.
It's disgusting how a referendum of such significance- far more important than a general election- has been centered around and reported in terms of the internal, up-its-own-arse politicking of the Conservative (Tory) party. Disgusting, but not surprising.
As you say, the whole thing started out as a political sop, designed purely to placate its own right-wing "Eurosceptic" members.
I voted "Yes" in the Scottish independence referendum in 2014 for a number of reasons. A major one was that I knew the EU referendum was on the horizon and I wasn't prepared to risk Scotland being dragged out of the EU by Tories playing political football with the country's future simply to placate their own voter base in the south east of England.
Back then, I still thought it was far more likely than not that the UK would remain within the EU; I just wasn't prepared to risk it.
I look forward to the response of every politician that scaremongered about whether an independent Scotland's position would have the right to remain within the EU during the 2014 referendum. The same people who convinced Scotland to remain a part of the UK (#) and to accept the results of being in bed with an elephant that's barely aware of its existence most of the time. Whether that outcome was the Tory government majority across the UK as a whole in the 2015 general election rendering the SNP's overwhelming majority of MPs in Scotland irrelevant (the Tories got *one* isolated seat here). Or whether that was Scotland being dragged out of the EU against its will by a party and political process that has long been centered around the south-east of England.
I'm not suggesting that all these people- especially not the Labour supporters- wanted a Tory government or the UK out of the EU (Scotland against its will). I'm saying that they placed their own UK-centric interests first, knowing the risk to Scotland. Especially the Labour supporters.
I wonder how many of those people will have the nerve to show their faces now that the scaremongering outcome they claimed would happen if Scotland voted "Yes" to independence has come true thanks to their "No" side winning and the Tory-centric English vote dragging it out anyway.
(#) In particular, I'm thinking of the utterly worthless Labour party (until recently dominant in Scotland) that only got back into power in the 90s- admittedly very successfully- by selling out everything they stood for in order to appeal to Middle England, turning themselves into little more than red Tories. The same Labour party that may now have elected the stereotypically left-wing Jeremy Corbyn as leader (##) but don't stand a cat's chance in hell of getting elected by that same Middle England electorate and can be dismissed as irrelevant.
(##) Someone who at least appeared principled at first- even if I didn't agree with much of what he stood for- but was so utterly lukewarm, half-baked and borderline invisible in his support for "Remain" that one suspects this may have been intentional. (Corbyn was well-known for his Euroscepticism, but claimed to have switched to remain with some reservations. Please excuse my scepticism.)
How can you tell when Betteridge's law of headlines doesn't apply?
When you actually understand what the original point of it was rather than lazily trying to appear smarter than you are by thinking "OMG it's a headline in the form of a yes/no question, therefore Betteridge applies."
Finally, a "businessman" so honest to admit that he's a scammer.
I picked up on that quote as well, and you've got it the wrong way round. He's someone who - at heart- knows damn well he's a worthless, low-rent pissy little thief/conman and is trying to rationalise his behaviour and kid himself (more than anyone else) that he's a "businessman".