Go ahead and double click on your iso with your 1 button mouse.
Back in the dim and distant past when I last used windows ("XP" I think it was called?) I seem to recall a Double Click entailed clicking one button twice. Don't tell me they subsequently changed that to one click from each button!
The did get to decide the terms of the coalition though, and they apparently agreed to ditching all their major policies...
Yep, they agreed to ditching almost all of their major policies in return for the referendum on voting. That was the one major item they couldn't, and wouldn't, budge on because they presumably felt that everything else was window dressing in comparison. Had the population not been such a bunch of Daily Mail readers and the referendum come down against FPTP then the Lib Dems could have hoped to get more seats in future elections and change our parliament from a two party system into a real three party system with a far better spread of representation in parliament. That would, IMHO, have been worth letting go on the other items they cared about. As I said, I'm not a Lib Dem supporter, but it would seem to me to have been a worthwhile gamble. Sadly, they didn't count on the vast reserves of apathy and ignorance this country can call on when the Red Tops wave the flag!
The Liberals made plenty of pledges... like education and then whoops...
... and then whoops, they didn't win, so all bets are off! I'm not a Lib Dem supporter, but really, their election promises were for if they won the election and however you cut it, they didn't win!
I'm more annoyed about both Lib Dem and Con MPs who said they'd repeal the Digital Economy Act if they got into power and they haven't done so. That's a far more heinous crime because there was really nothing to stop them just cutting it dead in the water on day one after the Nu-Liebour unelected mandarin, and multi-expelled from government for sleaze, Lord Mandlemort rail-roaded it through at the last minute.
It will be interesting to see what the parties are willing to promise next time around, but of course we haven't actually held them to their word this time, so I guess we're just back to business as usual!
I still think that a terrestrial space elevator is a decade out, but this year has convinced me that it is coming much faster than a lot of people think.
If we actually return to the moon, might a space elevator be more practical there? Could we do that now?
What about Mars... how close are we to using a SE there?
The Police thought it was a problem. Apparently there were two gangs operating in the area at the time. One was a bunch of chancers and the others were a nasty bunch of bastards who, in all likelyhood, would indeed kill your family. My friend and his family were whisked away to a safe house. Alarms were put in his house which didn't just ring to the local Police station, but rang directly to any Police cars out on patrol with instruction that if the alarm went off they should proceed with all haste to my friend's house.
He returned a few days later. His father in law turned up unexpected and was greeted by a van load of armed response officers - somewhat spooked him by all accounts!
He now never answers his phone. You leave a message and he calls you back.
It was a VERY nasty experience and he will NOT be having any devices in his cars that could give even the remotest chance of tracking them.
An old school friend was contacted by blackmailers a few years back and they asked for £10000. In return, they said they wouldn't kill his family. He contacted the Police and they eventually caught the people.
There is NO WAY IN HELL he would have a tracker in his car because if anyone was able to break into the system it would make it easier for similar people to track, find, and do god knows what else, to his family. They could _know_ that his car was away from home and his wife's car was at home. They could _know_ that all vehicles were away and therefore the house was empty. And let's not even start to tell me the system is secure because we all know there is no such system!
There are just so many ways the information could be miss-used and abused, when a far simpler way to 'tax by the mile' is to put tax on the fuel.
Tax on fuel: You drive a lot... you pay more. You drive an inefficient vehicle, or drive inefficiently, you pay more. Simple and cheap to setup, and cheap to run.
.. 10Mbps isn't "blistering" in any positive sense.
I'd settle for 10Mbps and, oddly, it's what I pay for from Virgin Media. I do hope all the extra traffic isn't going to even further degrade my bandwidth! That said, getting 10Mbps all across London sounds great!
Next, we want it to be able to pass a connection from POP to POP as we wander around without feeling like it's dropping and re-connecting (just like a mobile phone does) then we lucky Virgin Media people can use skype or somesuch throughout London... Sur-weet!
LOL: I was with Telewest from the start... BlueYonder... now Virgin. To be fair, mostly it's OK but I've had some howlers when seeking support! My favourite was ringing up to complain about a slow service (I had 6+ months of this too... turned out there was a fault and eventually they found and fixed it) and I was told that I should turn off my cable modem and let it cool down for an hour or so, and more, that I should turn it off every few days to let it cool down because the problem was caused by it OVERHEATING! Let me tell you, I was not happy. When I hung up I rang through again, but this time to the "I'm thinking of leaving" people and told them to come take this fire-risk out of my house... I was assured it wasn't a fire risk and it wouldn't over heat and everything was fine... I passed on the name of the nob-jocky support wipe who tried to pull that fast one I can tell you!
Also, all the support crap of... turn off the cable modem. Now unplug it... UNPLUG IT! Holy crap... what the hell difference will that make?... and STARTING the conversation with "is there anything else I can help you with today"... GGGRRRRRRRRR! Let's fix the problem I just rang about first shall we!... and messages like "you could also check on our website..." NOT IF MY CONNECTION IS DOWN I CAN'T!.... and going through the whole damn turn off, unplug, stand in a bucket of milk, plug back in, reboot, sing hallelujah rigmarole.. THEN they check to see if there's other problems in the area... oh yes, I see there's a fault in your area... WELL WHY DIDN'T YOU CHECK THAT FIRST YOU DOLT!...
The 6 months sh1te service I mentioned meant I had to call every month to tell them how sh1te it was to get a rebate. I asked why, since they would KNOW when the fault was fixed and until that time my service would be sh1te, they couldn't just not damn well charge me until they fixed it. Apparently they wanted to annoy me even further by having me go through the damn turn if off, unplug it, yada yada yada support dance every month.
... and yet, with persistence, you can sometimes get through to someone who knows their arse from their elbow and they can be very helpful.
... They know that once they have made it onto the approved list they have very little competition so can charge well over the odds.
Often, once they are on the list there is no competition! I'm not sure what the Approved Supplier List is supposed to do, but it sure as hell doesn't guarantee price or performance! Strikes me it's just a boondoggle to encourage back handers, 'cos there's precious little else to recommend the practice!
... Of course, you can't put them exactly side-by-side...
Side by side in series all around the coast, or perhaps several rows in parallel around the most suitable parts of the coast? After a wave has been over one of these things there's still a lot of 'wave' left, and certainly enough to make it worthwhile placing a 2nd row of these things.
As per a previous poster, it does seem like an interesting idea to build a wind farm with these things at the base of each wind turbine and share much of the infrastructure...
It makes no difference when you live in a land ruled by greens.
Well, if Germany wants to go down that route to be Green then so be it, but they should also enshrine in law some massive (punitive) tax on any energy they import from technologies they abandoned, otherwise surely they're just encouraging other countries to be un-green to meet Germany's energy shortfall!
Nicely put... of course bomb warnings were so common in the UK we'd have a "Bomb Warden" in the office (actually, I was the Bomb Warden at one place I worked in the City!), as well as the more usual "Fire Warden", but I guess it wasn't so bad as it wasn't like "snow to the Eskimos" 'cos we still only had one word for Bomb... actually, strike that: Bin Bomb, Car Bomb, Pipe Bomb, Letter Bomb... [sigh]. Mostly someone would walk into a pub and have a pint (of Guiness?) then leave but forget their holdall... tick tick tick BOOOM! It's actually quite hard to understand how anyone could do such a thing, and yet I guess if push came to shove and you felt sufficiently oppressed who knows! The UK had plans to mount such 'guerilla' war if Germany had managed to cross the channel during WWII - caches of arms and explosives were secretly hidden all over the country in preparation. One of my Dad's friends was involved in the hiding and was witnessed by some (other) local. He reported that the cache location was compromised and was told that in the event of a successful German invasion he would have to 'deal' with the witness to ensure the cache location was safe. I guess these are the sorts of memories our parents (G-parents) have... MY Great Grandfather fought in the trenches in WWI but very rarely talked about it - the one story relates how they'd take it in turns to go get breakfast for the residents of the 'hole' they lived in and on one occasion they were watching one of their mates return with the tray of breaky and he was hit by a shell and someone said "well, there goes our bloody breakfast!". I guess without the gallows 'humour' you would just go nuts in an environment like that!
It would be nice to think that nothing nasty will ever happen again, and it's defo a good thing to hope for, aspire to... but actually how likely is it?
If I had mod points I'd mod you up... even posted as an AC! People were calm and stoical about it in that almost comical 'British stiff upper lip' sort of way, whereas now we massively over react. I think back then we collectively decided that just getting on with it was our way of fighting back in some small way, whereas now we think the Government should protect us! On the back of that, we've had our freedoms curtailed and the Gov has more power over us now than it ever had before. They use Terrorism as the bogeyman to scare us into submission...
We had the IRA blowing up rubbish bins (AKA trash cans) on the street which is why there are still so few of them around (not that they blew them all up you understand, they were removed because they were an easy place to drop a bomb!).
Why would you think that a small box you find is a bomb? No, seriously - why the fuck would you think that?
UK People of a certain age look upon any strange object as a possible threat because of years and years of the IRA (and more latterly the RIRA) leaving bombs in rubbish bins (AKA "trash cans) and the like. Hell, they even left pipe bombs near schools and a pipe bomb could easily be a geocache!! Let's not forget that the US, through NORAID, funded these people too. War On Terror... yer, now people are blowing the US up!
It's been a while in mainland Britain, but the memories of pubs being blown up in London, shopping centres around the country... any soft target where people would otherwise just be going about their daily lives, well, it leaves an indelible mark. Maybe the kids can grow up differently now as the current crop of terrorists seem only keen on the big grandstanding attacks, and of course the IRA (& RIRA) never had anyone even nearly stupid enough to consider being a suicide bomber, though many blew themselves up by mistake.
Anyway, just don't leave any unattended bags or stuff when travelling around the UK... and now you know why!
... Bunch of sick fucks, deleting messages and giving the parents hope their kid is still alive (it's not the only time they've done this too).
... and then getting an exclusive deal to talk with the Dowlers about their hopes that Milly was still alive! Callous? I think so!
Boycott the paper! But I don't suppose the readership will.
It should be remembered that the reason the phone hacking was so prevalent was because The Public likes to read the salacious stories the technique can grub up, like rummaging through the bins, and what The Public wants The Public gets... NotW were only providing what their readers wanted!
I've been informed that prior to JFK being assassinated, you could take an unloaded rifle as carry-on luggage. That changed shortly there after.
Eh? So you're saying the JFK assassination (grassy knoll/library window?, back of head in open car, etc?) was the trigger which stopped people being able to take (unloaded?) rifles as hand/carry-on luggage? Did someone think he was shot from a passing aeroplane window? [shakes head] I don't get that at all? But you could still check it in the hold... they were obviously totally sure no one had popped the pres from the hold?
How an I supposed to know what I am not allowed to say...
Exactly so Sir. I don't know who was served with super-injunctions which prevented them from saying things about some anonymous person (or persons) and also prevented them from even talking about the fact they can't talk about it, but I certainly haven't been told I can't talk about it?
Hmmmm. That Super-Injunction's not looking quite so Super now is it!
Honestly, I really couldn't give a toss about what footballers get up to off the pitch - actually, I don't really care what they do on the pitch either, but when they use their fame and fortune to try and restrict the Freedom of Speech I start to care, but not in a good way!!!
If you gain some of your value from your public persona then, IMHO, you sold your soul to the devil and if you live by the sword you die by the sword! Best bet is to try and keep your sword sheathed in the first place!
Slashdot Mirror
Go ahead and double click on your iso with your 1 button mouse.
Back in the dim and distant past when I last used windows ("XP" I think it was called?) I seem to recall a Double Click entailed clicking one button twice. Don't tell me they subsequently changed that to one click from each button!
The did get to decide the terms of the coalition though, and they apparently agreed to ditching all their major policies ...
Yep, they agreed to ditching almost all of their major policies in return for the referendum on voting. That was the one major item they couldn't, and wouldn't, budge on because they presumably felt that everything else was window dressing in comparison. Had the population not been such a bunch of Daily Mail readers and the referendum come down against FPTP then the Lib Dems could have hoped to get more seats in future elections and change our parliament from a two party system into a real three party system with a far better spread of representation in parliament. That would, IMHO, have been worth letting go on the other items they cared about. As I said, I'm not a Lib Dem supporter, but it would seem to me to have been a worthwhile gamble. Sadly, they didn't count on the vast reserves of apathy and ignorance this country can call on when the Red Tops wave the flag!
The Liberals made plenty of pledges... like education and then whoops ...
I'm more annoyed about both Lib Dem and Con MPs who said they'd repeal the Digital Economy Act if they got into power and they haven't done so. That's a far more heinous crime because there was really nothing to stop them just cutting it dead in the water on day one after the Nu-Liebour unelected mandarin, and multi-expelled from government for sleaze, Lord Mandlemort rail-roaded it through at the last minute.
It will be interesting to see what the parties are willing to promise next time around, but of course we haven't actually held them to their word this time, so I guess we're just back to business as usual!
... and I guess we'd be in line for an eight day silence to mark our respect!
I still think that a terrestrial space elevator is a decade out, but this year has convinced me that it is coming much faster than a lot of people think.
If we actually return to the moon, might a space elevator be more practical there? Could we do that now? ... how close are we to using a SE there?
What about Mars
He returned a few days later. His father in law turned up unexpected and was greeted by a van load of armed response officers - somewhat spooked him by all accounts!
He now never answers his phone. You leave a message and he calls you back.
It was a VERY nasty experience and he will NOT be having any devices in his cars that could give even the remotest chance of tracking them.
There is NO WAY IN HELL he would have a tracker in his car because if anyone was able to break into the system it would make it easier for similar people to track, find, and do god knows what else, to his family. They could _know_ that his car was away from home and his wife's car was at home. They could _know_ that all vehicles were away and therefore the house was empty. And let's not even start to tell me the system is secure because we all know there is no such system!
There are just so many ways the information could be miss-used and abused, when a far simpler way to 'tax by the mile' is to put tax on the fuel.
Tax on fuel: You drive a lot ... you pay more. You drive an inefficient vehicle, or drive inefficiently, you pay more. Simple and cheap to setup, and cheap to run.
.. 10Mbps isn't "blistering" in any positive sense.
I'd settle for 10Mbps and, oddly, it's what I pay for from Virgin Media. I do hope all the extra traffic isn't going to even further degrade my bandwidth! That said, getting 10Mbps all across London sounds great!
Next, we want it to be able to pass a connection from POP to POP as we wander around without feeling like it's dropping and re-connecting (just like a mobile phone does) then we lucky Virgin Media people can use skype or somesuch throughout London ... Sur-weet!
Also, all the support crap of ... turn off the cable modem. Now unplug it ... UNPLUG IT! Holy crap ... what the hell difference will that make? ... and STARTING the conversation with "is there anything else I can help you with today" ... GGGRRRRRRRRR! Let's fix the problem I just rang about first shall we! ... and messages like "you could also check on our website ..." NOT IF MY CONNECTION IS DOWN I CAN'T! .... and going through the whole damn turn off, unplug, stand in a bucket of milk, plug back in, reboot, sing hallelujah rigmarole .. THEN they check to see if there's other problems in the area ... oh yes, I see there's a fault in your area ... WELL WHY DIDN'T YOU CHECK THAT FIRST YOU DOLT! ...
The 6 months sh1te service I mentioned meant I had to call every month to tell them how sh1te it was to get a rebate. I asked why, since they would KNOW when the fault was fixed and until that time my service would be sh1te, they couldn't just not damn well charge me until they fixed it. Apparently they wanted to annoy me even further by having me go through the damn turn if off, unplug it, yada yada yada support dance every month.
... They know that once they have made it onto the approved list they have very little competition so can charge well over the odds.
Often, once they are on the list there is no competition! I'm not sure what the Approved Supplier List is supposed to do, but it sure as hell doesn't guarantee price or performance! Strikes me it's just a boondoggle to encourage back handers, 'cos there's precious little else to recommend the practice!
So, presumably if BT points this out and therefore has to block Google too, maybe Google can pay to fight the stupid law!
... Of course, you can't put them exactly side-by-side ...
Side by side in series all around the coast, or perhaps several rows in parallel around the most suitable parts of the coast? After a wave has been over one of these things there's still a lot of 'wave' left, and certainly enough to make it worthwhile placing a 2nd row of these things.
As per a previous poster, it does seem like an interesting idea to build a wind farm with these things at the base of each wind turbine and share much of the infrastructure ...
There will always be somebody that gets freaked out by something they don't understand.
See also Evolution: Whoa ... so you're saying we're descended from Apes? The Hell You Say!"
It makes no difference when you live in a land ruled by greens.
Well, if Germany wants to go down that route to be Green then so be it, but they should also enshrine in law some massive (punitive) tax on any energy they import from technologies they abandoned, otherwise surely they're just encouraging other countries to be un-green to meet Germany's energy shortfall!
There is the "snow in Bahamas" effect...
Nicely put ... of course bomb warnings were so common in the UK we'd have a "Bomb Warden" in the office (actually, I was the Bomb Warden at one place I worked in the City!), as well as the more usual "Fire Warden", but I guess it wasn't so bad as it wasn't like "snow to the Eskimos" 'cos we still only had one word for Bomb ... actually, strike that: Bin Bomb, Car Bomb, Pipe Bomb, Letter Bomb ... [sigh]. Mostly someone would walk into a pub and have a pint (of Guiness?) then leave but forget their holdall ... tick tick tick BOOOM! It's actually quite hard to understand how anyone could do such a thing, and yet I guess if push came to shove and you felt sufficiently oppressed who knows! The UK had plans to mount such 'guerilla' war if Germany had managed to cross the channel during WWII - caches of arms and explosives were secretly hidden all over the country in preparation. One of my Dad's friends was involved in the hiding and was witnessed by some (other) local. He reported that the cache location was compromised and was told that in the event of a successful German invasion he would have to 'deal' with the witness to ensure the cache location was safe. I guess these are the sorts of memories our parents (G-parents) have ... MY Great Grandfather fought in the trenches in WWI but very rarely talked about it - the one story relates how they'd take it in turns to go get breakfast for the residents of the 'hole' they lived in and on one occasion they were watching one of their mates return with the tray of breaky and he was hit by a shell and someone said "well, there goes our bloody breakfast!". I guess without the gallows 'humour' you would just go nuts in an environment like that!
It would be nice to think that nothing nasty will ever happen again, and it's defo a good thing to hope for, aspire to ... but actually how likely is it?
I preferred the old way!
Why attack a flower box?....
We had the IRA blowing up rubbish bins (AKA trash cans) on the street which is why there are still so few of them around (not that they blew them all up you understand, they were removed because they were an easy place to drop a bomb!).
I refer you, if I may, to my previous post here.
Why would you think that a small box you find is a bomb? No, seriously - why the fuck would you think that?
UK People of a certain age look upon any strange object as a possible threat because of years and years of the IRA (and more latterly the RIRA) leaving bombs in rubbish bins (AKA "trash cans) and the like. Hell, they even left pipe bombs near schools and a pipe bomb could easily be a geocache!! Let's not forget that the US, through NORAID, funded these people too. War On Terror ... yer, now people are blowing the US up!
It's been a while in mainland Britain, but the memories of pubs being blown up in London, shopping centres around the country ... any soft target where people would otherwise just be going about their daily lives, well, it leaves an indelible mark. Maybe the kids can grow up differently now as the current crop of terrorists seem only keen on the big grandstanding attacks, and of course the IRA (& RIRA) never had anyone even nearly stupid enough to consider being a suicide bomber, though many blew themselves up by mistake.
Anyway, just don't leave any unattended bags or stuff when travelling around the UK ... and now you know why!
... Bunch of sick fucks, deleting messages and giving the parents hope their kid is still alive (it's not the only time they've done this too).
Boycott the paper! But I don't suppose the readership will.
It should be remembered that the reason the phone hacking was so prevalent was because The Public likes to read the salacious stories the technique can grub up, like rummaging through the bins, and what The Public wants The Public gets ... NotW were only providing what their readers wanted!
Why would they do something that has at least some chance of hurting them politically when they can do nothing and be safe?
+1 Insightful!
I've been informed that prior to JFK being assassinated, you could take an unloaded rifle as carry-on luggage. That changed shortly there after.
Eh? So you're saying the JFK assassination (grassy knoll/library window?, back of head in open car, etc?) was the trigger which stopped people being able to take (unloaded?) rifles as hand/carry-on luggage? Did someone think he was shot from a passing aeroplane window? [shakes head] I don't get that at all? But you could still check it in the hold ... they were obviously totally sure no one had popped the pres from the hold?
... but not planning to recover the capsule ...
So does the monkey get to die of thirst or suffocate?
Nice.
So I can take my car on a plane for a cross-US trip? Cool. What's the baggage excess on that?
Yes, but you have to be able to put it in the overhead locker unassisted.
Why didn't you just drive down there in your fucking expensive Ferrari, or were you too busy getting a blowjob from your supermodel girlfriend?
Jealous?
No, envious!
How an I supposed to know what I am not allowed to say ...
Exactly so Sir. I don't know who was served with super-injunctions which prevented them from saying things about some anonymous person (or persons) and also prevented them from even talking about the fact they can't talk about it, but I certainly haven't been told I can't talk about it?
Hmmmm. That Super-Injunction's not looking quite so Super now is it!
Honestly, I really couldn't give a toss about what footballers get up to off the pitch - actually, I don't really care what they do on the pitch either, but when they use their fame and fortune to try and restrict the Freedom of Speech I start to care, but not in a good way!!!
If you gain some of your value from your public persona then, IMHO, you sold your soul to the devil and if you live by the sword you die by the sword! Best bet is to try and keep your sword sheathed in the first place!