In this show:wild weather, the host, Donal MacIntyre, presented information that graphed rainy days against days of the week in major American cities. Sure enough it rains much more on Friday thru Sunday than the rest of the week. Why? Because all that work week traffic ends up seeding the clouds until so much particle build up causes rain. By Monday, the corresponding lack of traffic, allows the weather to dry out again.
I knew there must be some rational people on Bush's side somewhere, so I find it very interesting discussing this with you. I think where we may differ is not so much the reasoning but our starting axioms, ie we believe different things to be true.
I thought what was reported here was the money trail for Al Quaeda lead straight back to Saudi, just as money trails for Israels support lead back to USA and some for IRA also lead to USA. And no it doesn't make all USA citizens terrorists. Or even the ones supplying the money, they might not support blowing up of civilians while they do support liberation and self government for a people.
Right now I have a hard time knowing what to believe from anyone but Bush is more difficult to believe because what he says so profoundly contradicts his actions, very Orwellian.
I don't understand why the "job" wasn't completed the first time in 1991. I have noticed that the other middle east countries have been fairly quiet on the subject, or perhaps that is just bias in reporting delivery. But they don't seem very supportive and I did hear that they did not reguard Saddam as a serious threat. I'd feel differently if Saddam had actually invaded somewhere this time or in the last 10 years, but he's only persecuted his own people.
He's not the only leader guilty of that. So what really scares me is "Who's next?". I wonder so long as they've got no oil perhaps they're safe but that would mean several African countries eg Nigeria and Angola could be in trouble.
Very good point about the freeway pileups. I wish I could find the stats about road deaths and other preventable deaths. Ie compare that to the trade tower deaths and where the hell are our priorities. Cars could be much safer than they are. Roads could be safer. Perhaps if the same money was invested in road safetly we'd save more lives than trying to fight terrorism.
I can't see how people can live normal lives and still prevent terrorism. You don't need a weapon of mass destruction. You just need a truck and some fertilizer or maybe dodgy beer, or perhaps a petrol truck. Imagine trying to prevent any of these things or all of them from being used perhaps...
The best way I can see to prevent people wanting to commit mass violence is to give them more hope, and more choice in how they live their lives. So they don't feel like a big statement or a little one (suicide) is their only solution. The more oppressive things get with governments trying to prevent people blowing things up, the more people are going to want to blow things up. There has to be a better way, or more likely, better ways, lots of ways.
The screwups seem to be predictable. Why are so many helicopters crashing. Why do they bother trying to get them airbourne when they cannot see anything. Or even bother with the close formations. I took a very long helicopter ride once to see land formations in Northern Australia, and the helicopter pilots were very careful about keeping a very very safe distance from everything. It was a bit disappointing because we didn't get a good view, but we didn't get to crash into a gorge wall either. You think these war pilots could take the conditions into account.
Democracy is the only form of government - hmm the devil is in the detail here. quality of candidates being a starting point
Hmm your comment was so long I can only see half of it.
Kennel club. I'm currently baby sitting my family's decrepit ancient kelpie/healer cross. She used to be so lively and now she sleeps more than a cat. And she's deaf and fairly blind so we can't walk her without the comfort of a lead. Ok the sheep thing used to involve teeth, but now involves rubber bands, and they usually put one around the tail at the same time. Lambs tails in oz get docked to reduce the chance of fly strike.
Economics, not a subject I have studied. Everyone should have money, isn't that socialist? I think everyone should have food, shelter, he
I can't find Twirlip's specific post on the subject. What I can find of Twirlip's seems very pro-USA Government and Bush. Including a link to a piece that I can't figure out is sarcastic or a alternate reality from the one I experience. Specifically something recent in Twirlip's journal points to Eagle7
for example:
"Explain why you think 9/11 is more tied to Saudia Arabia than Iraq."
My explanation, all the hijackers that died were from Saudi Arabia and there is enough evidence that the project was funded out of Saudi Arabia that some ever hopefuls have funded a class action against some Saudi banks and high flyers. So far there has been no link estabished between Saddam Hussein and Al Quaeda, in fact given AQ's principles, they are more likely to be against Saddam than with him, and I think Saddam knew that.
BTW, I think Bush was impatient because he didn't seem to give a shit for 15 years what Saddam was up to and all of a sudden, they have to have a war before summer breaks and next year's elections. Why? And where are Saddam's weapons now?
And more fun, friendly fire and helicopters in sandstorms seem to be taking a higher toll than they will admit that the Iraqi's have got. I still can't figure out that kind of propaganda ie that it is better to say that "we shot our troops" than "Saddam's army shot our troops".
about the lambs. I really think you don't want to know. And cats - omg as long as you can disable their claws and still access the balls, tricky tricky. I wouldn't be game to try it. Actually I personally wouldn't do sheep either.
and pardon my southern ignorance but what is AKC? Interesting that they tried to take the subjectivity out of breed (of what? Sheep?) standards. And funny that it showed up inconsistencies in their standards. It would suggest a rewrite to me, and maybe an agreement to accept the subjectivity. (unless it is abused - like in Olympic ice skating - oops).
BTW I'd be interested to know which quadrant of the Polticial Compass you or twirlip score in. I came out in Ghandi's quadrant although a little further to the right. Something about being a capitalist pig that likes to look after the people who cannot look after themselves. Very feudal I suppose, but I'd rather hand over money to someone who asks for it politely than have it stolen from me by a mugger or house breaker...
doesn't seem to make things any better. I think our (Australian's) main problem is the quality of candidates that we get to choose from. At the moment the only one that looks any good is Bob Brown, a gay tasmanian (note: tasmania most homophobic state in Aus so he's a brave man).
Unfortunately most voters think the greens want us to go back to being nomadic and subsistence farmers. Which isn't true. You can live very well in a sustainable way.
What I'd like to see is reform that encourages a better quality of candidate
1. no felons, so everyone who nominates goes through the same kind of security checks that you would to get work at the pentagon, with things like political protest related arrests being an exception to exclusion.
2. no bankrupts, I guess bankruptsy is a learning experience so maybe not more than one, and not in the last 10 years. After all these people will be in charge of running our government so they'd better be able to manage money.
3. some degree of privacy. No reporting on sexual habits or love life or children or family in relation to candidates. Ie you can report about Jeb Bush but no need to mention he is George's brother. Uh, except where the family member is over 18 and working in politics then the stuff that family member does that is politically related should be ok.
4. assets declared but not required to be given up. I don't mind if a candidate has a vested interest so long as I know up front what that is.
5. repsonsible working hours. Candidates should not be expected to sit for more than 4 hours at a time or 8 hours in a 24hr period. And not more than 250 days (ie excluding weekends or equivalent time) in a year. No sitting between 10pm at night and 6am in the morning unless the sitting has been called because war has been or needs to be declared. NZ use their "emergency sittng" all the time just to get regular stuff done instead of managing things better. I think thats wrong.
6. Child care should be available at or near Parliament House or venues that candidates are required to work. This isn't just a women's issue.
The above is based on what I think needs to be done to get the kind of people I think ought to be elected, to run. There's probably more stuff related to campaign spending, like perhaps equal time and space in public media, ie if candidate 1 buys itself some air time, the medium must give equal time to the other candidates. Personally I make my decision before the election and don't let any of the crap that comes out during the campaign make a difference. Just as well cos it is almost entirely lies.
Hmm, I'd like to be able to force the ones that lie about political things to resign when they are found out. And the ones that don't keep their promises. They shouldn't be promising things they can't fund.
Hmm, think I'd better start hassling my rep again.
South Australia had one (unofficially) from 1938 for 27 years under Thomas Playford. He didn't allow for much discussion or dissent, but mostly he acted in the best interests of the people and our state. Now, if only that were always the case.
In our form of democracy, Thomas was elected by a small part of SA, and then elected again by the majority party to lead the elected reps, if that makes any sense, so, he personally wasn't elected by the majority of SA people, because he wasn't on a state ballot paper but on a subdivision electorate ballot paper. Personally I like the NZ system of proportional representation. It means some nutters get in, but it also means that people can see their vote counts, and that parliment does truly reflect the diversity of the population that elected it. Note. George Bush was not elected by a majority of USA citizens (not even the ones eligible to vote), so does that mean that the USA is no longer a democracy?
I had some problems with people wanting more details about some of the stuff I posted.
A bit annoying if I made it up to start with and downright terrifying if it was something truthful.
I quite like the thing attributed to Dorothy Parker "I don't care what they say about me so long as it isn't true."
I can tell you all you need to know about drop bears and hoop snakes. And a whole bunch of things you'd rather you didn't know about sharks, and old fashioned methods for neutering male lambs, among other things. I do find it pays to have a number of icky facts available for recital to shut up people who want to know everything about me and what I'm up to.
speaking(writing) of fibs, I can't believe the continuous stream coming out of the mouths of our leaders. George says: "we were reluctant to go into this war" - SAY WHAT? He couldn't wait. Where are those weapons of mass destruction now? Saddam might as well use everything he's got right? Or surrender, so why isn't he???
There was more stuff that I stuck in one of the other replies. George and links Although trying to do a search on "USA Congress member felony" only gets them making more ways to commit felonies, not the actual personal breaches.
I think for every new law enacted at least one should be repealed. And I'm not the only one who wants to use code for writing laws, ie something that is logically coherent enough to be decided by a computer not a judge, similar to those expert systems for assisting disease diagnosis.
George Bush's stats
from "stupid white men" by michael moore George
arrested for drunk driving
arrested for stealing a Christmas Wreath
arrested for disorderly conduct at a football match
AWOL from Texas Air National Guard, skipped out for a year and a half
Official Biography is missing 3 years
sequence of failed businesses
more at Dry Drunk and
the awful truth
I think he should go to jail first for copying his speeches from Caeser and Goering.
Then everyone who has ever copied a record or taped something off the telly, should give themselves up, and insist on the same treatment. This is called passive resistence path to law reform. If enough people do it all at once (ie organised), it will completely overwhelm the system.
In the mean time wouldn't it be nice if the "no felony" rule applied to more than the military. And is it true that some people get a choice of the army or jail in the USA?
(Doing the rounds on email - no idea if it is true or not):
Can you imagine working for a company that has a little more than 500 employees and has the following statistics:
* 29 have been accused of spousal abuse * 7 have been arrested for fraud * 19 have been accused of writing bad cheques * 117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses * 3 have done time for assault * 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit * 14 have been arrested on drug-related charges * 8 have been arrested for shoplifting * 21 are currently defendants in lawsuits * 84 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year
Can you guess which organization this is?
Give up yet?
It's the 535 members of the United States Congress. The same group of idiots that crank out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep the rest of USA proletariat in line !!
to mod or to post? posting wins. me, me, mod me, me...
We found out the hard way that gps is absolutely useless when it comes to telling you which road is the local station road to check windmills and which is the through road to the next town. Guess which road gets used more? No the town road aint it! And don't get any ideas about driving off road, we punctured six tyres in 3km. We could have walked faster.
Hmm, I suppose the USA military mods will affect satellites over Australia and probably leave the ones over Iraq alone. I'm so glad the Canadians decided not to go. I'm worried for the Aussies that have. Hopefully they will factor their own error into GPS reports for the USA bombers. Hmm is that a Chinese Embassy or a TV station?
Yeah, I admit it was a stationary sandworm, but definitely a sandworm.
Jabba the Hut fed his bad debtors to it. Luke fed a number of Jabba supporters to it.
I saw some more recently on a tv show like buffy or charmed and those ones could move through tarmac/bitumen.
I'm sure they've been on the screen a lot more than the original Dune movie. They are cool monsters.
people with multiple vcrs who only watch stuff they pre-recorded? I'd be very happy if the vcr automatically fastforwarded in a preselected multiple of 15 seconds (cos that is the usual ad slice), but I can do that myself. And strangely I can lose the middle 3 minutes of ads completely because my screen blacks them out on the highest speed.
Does TiVo manage adhoc schedule changes when the chat show host with humungous celeb runs overtime or when the PHB decides to declare war and all shows get interrupted for the press conference? Australian Commercial TV almost never runs on time.
It looks like a nice idea, although the multiple vcrs are still cheaper here, and I'd rather pay for automatic fast forward increments.
And do you have to get a second phone line? Can you talk, tivo, and dsl at the same time?
And channel nine repeatedly stuffs up sequencing of the sci fi it shows and I am not just talking about repeats.
there was something on foxtel like scifi but they tend to show ten episodes of the same thing eg dr who or red dwarf on the same day, so you cannot get a regular fix.
And there is no sign of Dune or Children of Dune on the TV here at all.
I dunno why you mark something as informative as troll.
I suppose I am going to have to make friends with someone who can online stream the show.
they can't even get the sequence of farscape episodes right if they show them at all. And even on pay tv they don't show them whole or regularily, it's about as random as you can get.
So this is the same Dune that Frank Herbert created. I haven't seen anything in film/video about that since the Sting movie with the sandworms that they later pinched in Star Wars.
I suppose we will get to see it when the graphic look as current as the iron on a string graphics that the original Star Trek had.
I have a slight problem with baby spiders at the moment, and I'd kill them if it weren't that I think they might fix the other slight (?) problem with mosquitos.
Anyway one of these spiders crawled into the housing around the RJ45 port that I have on my PCMIA slot network card. I could see it because the housing is clear. But there wasn't a damn thing I could do to persuade it to leave.
I think it left of its own accord. It didn't take any bugs with it however. Maybe win98 bugs are not so tasty. Or there's too many for a small spider to cope with.
This does bring to mind the story of the old lady who swallowed a fly...
Sounds like a lot of the maintenance projects I've worked on. Ie systems that got built in the 60's and rebuilt in the 80's with a life expectancy of 5 to 10 years, and all were still going in Y2K. Yikes.
These systems were built like suburbs, with the durability of a paper house in a storm, but too large, important, and complicated to tear down and rebuild. Programmers had no idea what components of the systems were important until they removed them and the users complained.
And I've worked in several office blocks with a life expectancy of 15 to 20 years, that are now pushing 30 years. What does happen when a steel beam rusts? I've seen the steel framed fence posts slowly explode from rust on the inside. I don't like thinking of my steel and concrete 20 story office block doing that.
Some things seem old but you're really looking at patches on the patches on the patches.
And I'd be really happy if they supplied free access when your plane gets delayed or cancelled. The last trip I tried to make cost me about 8 hours in delays and a missed meeting. VirginBlue was so much better before it tried to absorb Ansett.
Hmm? would a vegie oil powered diesel fit in a bike fork? I suppose it wouldn't be any quieter.
I don't like the idea of all that engine weight being on the front wheel. It makes steering more unpredictable.
And I'd prefer one that got 80 miles to the tank not 20 miles. Like my people powered bike has a better range that that. Having to fill up twice a day would be a pain for me and the gas station.
Does the battery recharge going down hill? Maybe you could link it up with solar cells?
I've noticed that the treadleys with engines around my town are a bit slow to accellerate and slow for top speed compared to the bike couriers or myself. Personally, I absolutely depend on being able to beat the cars in the drag race from one side of the traffic lights to the other (up to 6 lanes) so I get a space on the road.
oh for a handlebar mounted paint gun, to shoot the inconsiderate motorists. Now that would be some useful commuter tech.
Ie I think an aeroplane would be better off using a rj45 in the chair arm, and now they can squish the server in there too. Now we just have to solve how to connect it to the rest of the internet without interferring with the navigation systems and anti missile targetting.
It sure beats installing the webserver in a blowfly.
They don't work on an interstate unless they put a web server with satellite link on the train/plane/boat - I don't think anyone has bothered yet. Ie an interstate traveller in Australia, is out of phone range and wireless nets when you get 30km outside the city limits.
In fact when I was doing the Sydney commute between Blacktown and Central, the signal on my mobile dropped out there in the middle of the most densely populated bit of Australia, as well. And there was even less coverage west of Blacktown. If it ain't together in Sydney, it is not covered properly in the other capital cities.
I'd be expecting more reliable and cheaper coverage than my mobile phone before I bothered trying to hook up to the internet. And I can't stand using the phone keypad for typing messages. I, um, (my age is showing), learnt to type on a manual typewriter followed by an ibm golfball. phone keypad is no place for a touch typist and don't even start me with the palm interfaces. I'd rather have a fold out/rollout keyboard or voice recognition.
Hmm, on a plane, it would possibly be better to have a RJ45 port in your seat arm with the port for radio/video sound, than to have more em data broadcasts.
I thought phones on planes worked liked ship to shore radio or satellite phones ie your regular mobile phone network wouldn't connect unless you were flying low over town?
Slashdot Mirror
In this show:wild weather, the host, Donal MacIntyre, presented information that graphed rainy days against days of the week in major American cities. Sure enough it rains much more on Friday thru Sunday than the rest of the week. Why? Because all that work week traffic ends up seeding the clouds until so much particle build up causes rain. By Monday, the corresponding lack of traffic, allows the weather to dry out again.
Now if weather varying predictably by the day of the week isn't man made, then I don't know what is.
I knew there must be some rational people on Bush's side somewhere, so I find it very interesting discussing this with you. I think where we may differ is not so much the reasoning but our starting axioms, ie we believe different things to be true.
I thought what was reported here was the money trail for Al Quaeda lead straight back to Saudi, just as money trails for Israels support lead back to USA and some for IRA also lead to USA. And no it doesn't make all USA citizens terrorists. Or even the ones supplying the money, they might not support blowing up of civilians while they do support liberation and self government for a people.
Right now I have a hard time knowing what to believe from anyone but Bush is more difficult to believe because what he says so profoundly contradicts his actions, very Orwellian.
I don't understand why the "job" wasn't completed the first time in 1991. I have noticed that the other middle east countries have been fairly quiet on the subject, or perhaps that is just bias in reporting delivery. But they don't seem very supportive and I did hear that they did not reguard Saddam as a serious threat. I'd feel differently if Saddam had actually invaded somewhere this time or in the last 10 years, but he's only persecuted his own people.
He's not the only leader guilty of that. So what really scares me is "Who's next?". I wonder so long as they've got no oil perhaps they're safe but that would mean several African countries eg Nigeria and Angola could be in trouble.
Very good point about the freeway pileups. I wish I could find the stats about road deaths and other preventable deaths. Ie compare that to the trade tower deaths and where the hell are our priorities. Cars could be much safer than they are. Roads could be safer. Perhaps if the same money was invested in road safetly we'd save more lives than trying to fight terrorism.
I can't see how people can live normal lives and still prevent terrorism. You don't need a weapon of mass destruction. You just need a truck and some fertilizer or maybe dodgy beer, or perhaps a petrol truck. Imagine trying to prevent any of these things or all of them from being used perhaps...
The best way I can see to prevent people wanting to commit mass violence is to give them more hope, and more choice in how they live their lives. So they don't feel like a big statement or a little one (suicide) is their only solution. The more oppressive things get with governments trying to prevent people blowing things up, the more people are going to want to blow things up. There has to be a better way, or more likely, better ways, lots of ways.
The screwups seem to be predictable. Why are so many helicopters crashing. Why do they bother trying to get them airbourne when they cannot see anything. Or even bother with the close formations. I took a very long helicopter ride once to see land formations in Northern Australia, and the helicopter pilots were very careful about keeping a very very safe distance from everything. It was a bit disappointing because we didn't get a good view, but we didn't get to crash into a gorge wall either. You think these war pilots could take the conditions into account.
Democracy is the only form of government - hmm the devil is in the detail here. quality of candidates being a starting point
Hmm your comment was so long I can only see half of it.
Kennel club. I'm currently baby sitting my family's decrepit ancient kelpie/healer cross. She used to be so lively and now she sleeps more than a cat. And she's deaf and fairly blind so we can't walk her without the comfort of a lead. Ok the sheep thing used to involve teeth, but now involves rubber bands, and they usually put one around the tail at the same time. Lambs tails in oz get docked to reduce the chance of fly strike.
Economics, not a subject I have studied. Everyone should have money, isn't that socialist? I think everyone should have food, shelter, he
I can't find Twirlip's specific post on the subject. What I can find of Twirlip's seems very pro-USA Government and Bush. Including a link to a piece that I can't figure out is sarcastic or a alternate reality from the one I experience. Specifically something recent in Twirlip's journal points to Eagle7
for example: "Explain why you think 9/11 is more tied to Saudia Arabia than Iraq."
My explanation, all the hijackers that died were from Saudi Arabia and there is enough evidence that the project was funded out of Saudi Arabia that some ever hopefuls have funded a class action against some Saudi banks and high flyers. So far there has been no link estabished between Saddam Hussein and Al Quaeda, in fact given AQ's principles, they are more likely to be against Saddam than with him, and I think Saddam knew that.
BTW, I think Bush was impatient because he didn't seem to give a shit for 15 years what Saddam was up to and all of a sudden, they have to have a war before summer breaks and next year's elections. Why? And where are Saddam's weapons now?
And more fun, friendly fire and helicopters in sandstorms seem to be taking a higher toll than they will admit that the Iraqi's have got. I still can't figure out that kind of propaganda ie that it is better to say that "we shot our troops" than "Saddam's army shot our troops".
about the lambs. I really think you don't want to know. And cats - omg as long as you can disable their claws and still access the balls, tricky tricky. I wouldn't be game to try it. Actually I personally wouldn't do sheep either.
and pardon my southern ignorance but what is AKC? Interesting that they tried to take the subjectivity out of breed (of what? Sheep?) standards. And funny that it showed up inconsistencies in their standards. It would suggest a rewrite to me, and maybe an agreement to accept the subjectivity. (unless it is abused - like in Olympic ice skating - oops).
BTW I'd be interested to know which quadrant of the Polticial Compass you or twirlip score in. I came out in Ghandi's quadrant although a little further to the right. Something about being a capitalist pig that likes to look after the people who cannot look after themselves. Very feudal I suppose, but I'd rather hand over money to someone who asks for it politely than have it stolen from me by a mugger or house breaker...
And I wish Eagle7 would put more line breaks in.
doesn't seem to make things any better. I think our (Australian's) main problem is the quality of candidates that we get to choose from. At the moment the only one that looks any good is Bob Brown, a gay tasmanian (note: tasmania most homophobic state in Aus so he's a brave man).
Unfortunately most voters think the greens want us to go back to being nomadic and subsistence farmers. Which isn't true. You can live very well in a sustainable way.
What I'd like to see is reform that encourages a better quality of candidate
1. no felons, so everyone who nominates goes through the same kind of security checks that you would to get work at the pentagon, with things like political protest related arrests being an exception to exclusion.
2. no bankrupts, I guess bankruptsy is a learning experience so maybe not more than one, and not in the last 10 years. After all these people will be in charge of running our government so they'd better be able to manage money.
3. some degree of privacy. No reporting on sexual habits or love life or children or family in relation to candidates. Ie you can report about Jeb Bush but no need to mention he is George's brother. Uh, except where the family member is over 18 and working in politics then the stuff that family member does that is politically related should be ok.
4. assets declared but not required to be given up. I don't mind if a candidate has a vested interest so long as I know up front what that is.
5. repsonsible working hours. Candidates should not be expected to sit for more than 4 hours at a time or 8 hours in a 24hr period. And not more than 250 days (ie excluding weekends or equivalent time) in a year. No sitting between 10pm at night and 6am in the morning unless the sitting has been called because war has been or needs to be declared. NZ use their "emergency sittng" all the time just to get regular stuff done instead of managing things better. I think thats wrong.
6. Child care should be available at or near Parliament House or venues that candidates are required to work. This isn't just a women's issue.
The above is based on what I think needs to be done to get the kind of people I think ought to be elected, to run. There's probably more stuff related to campaign spending, like perhaps equal time and space in public media, ie if candidate 1 buys itself some air time, the medium must give equal time to the other candidates. Personally I make my decision before the election and don't let any of the crap that comes out during the campaign make a difference. Just as well cos it is almost entirely lies.
Hmm, I'd like to be able to force the ones that lie about political things to resign when they are found out. And the ones that don't keep their promises. They shouldn't be promising things they can't fund.
Hmm, think I'd better start hassling my rep again.
South Australia had one (unofficially) from 1938 for 27 years under Thomas Playford. He didn't allow for much discussion or dissent, but mostly he acted in the best interests of the people and our state. Now, if only that were always the case.
In our form of democracy, Thomas was elected by a small part of SA, and then elected again by the majority party to lead the elected reps, if that makes any sense, so, he personally wasn't elected by the majority of SA people, because he wasn't on a state ballot paper but on a subdivision electorate ballot paper. Personally I like the NZ system of proportional representation. It means some nutters get in, but it also means that people can see their vote counts, and that parliment does truly reflect the diversity of the population that elected it. Note. George Bush was not elected by a majority of USA citizens (not even the ones eligible to vote), so does that mean that the USA is no longer a democracy?
I had some problems with people wanting more details about some of the stuff I posted.
A bit annoying if I made it up to start with and downright terrifying if it was something truthful.
I quite like the thing attributed to Dorothy Parker "I don't care what they say about me so long as it isn't true."
I can tell you all you need to know about drop bears and hoop snakes. And a whole bunch of things you'd rather you didn't know about sharks, and old fashioned methods for neutering male lambs, among other things. I do find it pays to have a number of icky facts available for recital to shut up people who want to know everything about me and what I'm up to.
speaking(writing) of fibs, I can't believe the continuous stream coming out of the mouths of our leaders. George says: "we were reluctant to go into this war" - SAY WHAT? He couldn't wait. Where are those weapons of mass destruction now? Saddam might as well use everything he's got right? Or surrender, so why isn't he???
There was more stuff that I stuck in one of the other replies. George and links Although trying to do a search on "USA Congress member felony" only gets them making more ways to commit felonies, not the actual personal breaches. I think for every new law enacted at least one should be repealed. And I'm not the only one who wants to use code for writing laws, ie something that is logically coherent enough to be decided by a computer not a judge, similar to those expert systems for assisting disease diagnosis.
and I wonder why I get called loquatious. Urk.
chblue.com
George Bush's stats from "stupid white men" by michael moore
George
arrested for drunk driving
arrested for stealing a Christmas Wreath
arrested for disorderly conduct at a football match
AWOL from Texas Air National Guard, skipped out for a year and a half
Official Biography is missing 3 years
sequence of failed businesses
more at Dry Drunk and the awful truth
I think he should go to jail first for copying his speeches from Caeser and Goering.
how come you lot haven't noticed the nature of these acronymns?
WICE, MAN and RAMNET???
Looks like the Hustler staff couldn't have named this system better.
And I bet the number one use for it will be PR0N. Man's favourite Wice.
And don't get me started on the RAMNET. Well ok, you'd need the gumboots accessory for this.
As for convergence tech, are we not seeing all in one fax, photocopier, scanner, printer? Of course if it breaks you're stuffed. As usual.
Then everyone who has ever copied a record or taped something off the telly, should give themselves up, and insist on the same treatment. This is called passive resistence path to law reform. If enough people do it all at once (ie organised), it will completely overwhelm the system.
...
In the mean time wouldn't it be nice if the "no felony" rule applied to more than the military. And is it true that some people get a choice of the army or jail in the USA?
(Doing the rounds on email - no idea if it is true or not):
Can you imagine working for a company that has a
little more than 500 employees and has the following statistics:
* 29 have been accused of spousal abuse
* 7 have been arrested for fraud
* 19 have been accused of writing bad cheques
* 117 have directly or indirectly bankrupted at least 2 businesses
* 3 have done time for assault
* 71 cannot get a credit card due to bad credit
* 14 have been arrested on drug-related charges
* 8 have been arrested for shoplifting
* 21 are currently defendants in lawsuits
* 84 have been arrested for drunk driving in the last year
Can you guess which organization this is?
Give up yet?
It's the 535 members of the United States Congress. The same group of idiots that crank out hundreds of new laws each year designed to keep the rest of USA proletariat in line !!
to mod or to post? posting wins. me, me, mod me, me
We found out the hard way that gps is absolutely useless when it comes to telling you which road is the local station road to check windmills and which is the through road to the next town. Guess which road gets used more? No the town road aint it! And don't get any ideas about driving off road, we punctured six tyres in 3km. We could have walked faster.
Hmm, I suppose the USA military mods will affect satellites over Australia and probably leave the ones over Iraq alone. I'm so glad the Canadians decided not to go. I'm worried for the Aussies that have. Hopefully they will factor their own error into GPS reports for the USA bombers. Hmm is that a Chinese Embassy or a TV station?
Yeah, I admit it was a stationary sandworm, but definitely a sandworm. Jabba the Hut fed his bad debtors to it. Luke fed a number of Jabba supporters to it. I saw some more recently on a tv show like buffy or charmed and those ones could move through tarmac/bitumen. I'm sure they've been on the screen a lot more than the original Dune movie. They are cool monsters.
that we get like when an Australian team unexpectedly makes the finals of some sport.
Ie in the morning, ads for evening movie, in the evening, golf - argh.
But at least you wouldn't need a second phone line.
people with multiple vcrs who only watch stuff they pre-recorded? I'd be very happy if the vcr automatically fastforwarded in a preselected multiple of 15 seconds (cos that is the usual ad slice), but I can do that myself. And strangely I can lose the middle 3 minutes of ads completely because my screen blacks them out on the highest speed.
Does TiVo manage adhoc schedule changes when the chat show host with humungous celeb runs overtime or when the PHB decides to declare war and all shows get interrupted for the press conference? Australian Commercial TV almost never runs on time.
It looks like a nice idea, although the multiple vcrs are still cheaper here, and I'd rather pay for automatic fast forward increments.
And do you have to get a second phone line? Can you talk, tivo, and dsl at the same time?
And channel nine repeatedly stuffs up sequencing of the sci fi it shows and I am not just talking about repeats. there was something on foxtel like scifi but they tend to show ten episodes of the same thing eg dr who or red dwarf on the same day, so you cannot get a regular fix. And there is no sign of Dune or Children of Dune on the TV here at all. I dunno why you mark something as informative as troll. I suppose I am going to have to make friends with someone who can online stream the show.
Sad,
they can't even get the sequence of farscape episodes right if they show them at all. And even on pay tv they don't show them whole or regularily, it's about as random as you can get.
So this is the same Dune that Frank Herbert created. I haven't seen anything in film/video about that since the Sting movie with the sandworms that they later pinched in Star Wars.
I suppose we will get to see it when the graphic look as current as the iron on a string graphics that the original Star Trek had.
I'm disappointed and jealous
a panel of led lights in lots of different colors like those flashing christmas jewelry lights and logitech optical mice promotions.
Then I could program my computer to look like Joshua in Wargames...
Ah the movies define cool (but not practical)
I have a slight problem with baby spiders at the moment, and I'd kill them if it weren't that I think they might fix the other slight (?) problem with mosquitos.
Anyway one of these spiders crawled into the housing around the RJ45 port that I have on my PCMIA slot network card. I could see it because the housing is clear. But there wasn't a damn thing I could do to persuade it to leave.
I think it left of its own accord. It didn't take any bugs with it however. Maybe win98 bugs are not so tasty. Or there's too many for a small spider to cope with.
This does bring to mind the story of the old lady who swallowed a fly...
A real live furry mouse living in nice warm computer that has some of the slot covers at the back missing.
And we wondered why the fan was so noisy.
Sounds like a lot of the maintenance projects I've worked on. Ie systems that got built in the 60's and rebuilt in the 80's with a life expectancy of 5 to 10 years, and all were still going in Y2K. Yikes.
These systems were built like suburbs, with the durability of a paper house in a storm, but too large, important, and complicated to tear down and rebuild. Programmers had no idea what components of the systems were important until they removed them and the users complained.
And I've worked in several office blocks with a life expectancy of 15 to 20 years, that are now pushing 30 years. What does happen when a steel beam rusts? I've seen the steel framed fence posts slowly explode from rust on the inside. I don't like thinking of my steel and concrete 20 story office block doing that.
Some things seem old but you're really looking at patches on the patches on the patches.
as the videos they usually show?
And I'd be really happy if they supplied free access when your plane gets delayed or cancelled. The last trip I tried to make cost me about 8 hours in delays and a missed meeting. VirginBlue was so much better before it tried to absorb Ansett.
Hmm? would a vegie oil powered diesel fit in a bike fork? I suppose it wouldn't be any quieter.
I don't like the idea of all that engine weight being on the front wheel. It makes steering more unpredictable.
And I'd prefer one that got 80 miles to the tank not 20 miles. Like my people powered bike has a better range that that. Having to fill up twice a day would be a pain for me and the gas station.
Does the battery recharge going down hill? Maybe you could link it up with solar cells?
I've noticed that the treadleys with engines around my town are a bit slow to accellerate and slow for top speed compared to the bike couriers or myself. Personally, I absolutely depend on being able to beat the cars in the drag race from one side of the traffic lights to the other (up to 6 lanes) so I get a space on the road.
oh for a handlebar mounted paint gun, to shoot the inconsiderate motorists. Now that would be some useful commuter tech.
lack of.
Ie I think an aeroplane would be better off using a rj45 in the chair arm, and now they can squish the server in there too. Now we just have to solve how to connect it to the rest of the internet without interferring with the navigation systems and anti missile targetting.
It sure beats installing the webserver in a blowfly.
Does anyone know where there is one. I found something on www.motorola.com that said that it wasn't available in Europe. Not very informative.
Does anyone know what the difference is between iDEN and GSM and CDMA, and can one phone run all of them or do you need three phones?
They don't work on an interstate unless they put a web server with satellite link on the train/plane/boat - I don't think anyone has bothered yet. Ie an interstate traveller in Australia, is out of phone range and wireless nets when you get 30km outside the city limits. In fact when I was doing the Sydney commute between Blacktown and Central, the signal on my mobile dropped out there in the middle of the most densely populated bit of Australia, as well. And there was even less coverage west of Blacktown. If it ain't together in Sydney, it is not covered properly in the other capital cities. I'd be expecting more reliable and cheaper coverage than my mobile phone before I bothered trying to hook up to the internet. And I can't stand using the phone keypad for typing messages. I, um, (my age is showing), learnt to type on a manual typewriter followed by an ibm golfball. phone keypad is no place for a touch typist and don't even start me with the palm interfaces. I'd rather have a fold out/rollout keyboard or voice recognition. Hmm, on a plane, it would possibly be better to have a RJ45 port in your seat arm with the port for radio/video sound, than to have more em data broadcasts. I thought phones on planes worked liked ship to shore radio or satellite phones ie your regular mobile phone network wouldn't connect unless you were flying low over town?