I got caught some Dianetics people in the early 90s who were also offering a free personality test. Luckily I had read up on exactly what Dianetics was a few weeks beforehand and decided to go to see if it was really like I had read it was.
First of all they showed me some video and then I filled in a questionaire or something and went for a private interview with one of their practioners. He was trying to insinuate that I had psychological problems by asking things like "So, what do you regret most in life then eh ?". "Actually, nothing. I am very happy with my life - how about you ?". He was getting more and more frustrated by me insisting that life and great and I was the worlds best example of a rounded, well adjusted human being and in the end explained his theory about how auditing can help erase bad influences in my psyche so I asked him to explain exactly, scientifically, how this process worked and disagreed with everything he said. This carried on for 10 minutes or so and then he lost his temper when I told him that from what I'd heard so far he was peddling a load of nonsense and would be well advised to get out while he could. Then he accused me of being a reporter and wouldn't say anything else. He just sat there and wouldn't talk at all. I sat there for another couple of minutes or so reading a book I had just bought in town until he got up and left the room without saying anything.
What he's doing isn't determined by what I choose to think he's doing. The fact is that he has no psychic powers and is unable to read minds.
There may be people out there who have never heard of Uri Geller, he might turn up in their town one day and set up a stall reading peoples minds for cash. Some of the people who see him may think "Huh, who is this guy ? Is this for real, can he really be doing magic, should I give him my money ?" and these people may decide to look on the internet for further information. If Uri Geller has successfully stifled all discussion or evidence that he is really just a stage magician using simple tricks to fool people then this is a very dangerous situation. Obviously he's not in the same as scientoligists when it comes to this sort of activity and that's a good thing but not a reason to let him get a foot on the ladder.
This is an excellent illustration of how people can abuse things like copyrights to attempt to prop up their own dubious practices.
Clearly Uri Geller has no "psychic" abilities whatsoever and yet he has built his career on claims that he does and this is how he earns his money. Rather than offering scientifically measured demonstrations of his "powers" he attempts instead to simply keep his critics silent. Obviously this is totally reprehensible behaviour which shares some similarity with the behaviour of record companies whoes original purpose is rapidly diminishing and are also using copyright laws to prop themselves up.
I don't think the answer is necessarily changing the laws of copyright ( except correcting the ludicrous length of time protection can be claimed ) but making sure that people claiming it's protection are doing so properly. It would appear in this case there are no copyright violations since Mr Gellers material is only be critised and excerpted which is perfectly legal. Instead I advocate the slaughter of anyone, individuals or entire companies who attempt to abuse copyright laws in this manner. This should send a strong message that the public do want their rights trampled on and will not let individual members suffer bullying and intimidation for larger individuals or companies.
"Dragonlance? All started out awesome, then around the fourth"
Dragonlance was huge steaming pile of unimaginative, derivative crap from the very 1st book, I read up until number 3 and it just got worse and worse and worse.
It's not often I take time out from my high pressure and high profile work ( which I am currently excelling at, smashing all targets once again for the 12th consecutive year ) to comment on/. but I will make an exception in this case.
A lot of people have, quite rightly, highly praised my work for charity and the modest advances I have been able to bring to many areas of scientific endeavour and whilst I am obviously too modest to trumpet these achievments myself it would be nice if future employers or business partners were able to locate them on the web.
Employers especially can often be faced with seemingly excellent prospective employees only to find later on the full details of their sordid obsessions have been documented fully on the web for years. For myself, an excellent choice for almost any position you would want to fill, I welcome scrutiny on the web since I am confident this will simply highlight my excellent skills at driving projects forward and delivering truly innovative and groundbreaking solutions ( at a low low price ) not to mention my near legendary interpersonal and team building skills and a level of honesty which has in some quarters become a byword for "Solid Gold Standard".
Certainly it has been said that there is no finer employee than myself to truly add value to any business and that as a business partner I cannot be beaten.
It's just tragic that the network appears to be moving ahead of the scientists at this point and appears to be in the throes of some sort of dementia with regards to information about me. I think it's mistaken me for someone else:-(
Duh ! You do realise the documents are written in German don't you and I haven't seen anything written in German on the web so far so who's going to be able to read it ? Who actually uses German nowadays !
Talking about thefts I was working at an office once which had been broken into overnight. One of my colleagues usually got to work quite early before everyone else and he did that day too.
Obviously the thieves weren't very efficient because they'd left a load of computers and other things lying around. My colleague loaded as many of them as he could into his car drove home and turned up an hour later so where he was horrified to discover the break in.
or come up with a grating new single form, analogous to people who make a point of using questionable plural forms like virii to spur debate on their correctness. Sheeperson perhaps
There's been a number of occasions when I've bought stuff and the staff have forgotten to remove the security tags or they haven't been deactivated properly. At the moment that only means you might set off the alarm on the way out of the store or in other stores but with this system it may mean you get home and find the DVD is unplayable which means a trip back to the store for a replacement.
A good point, I suggest we assume from the beginning they will try to revolt and treat them as criminal terrorists from the outset. I'm sure if we remain vigilant and strong they will not succeed.
The best bet when we're engineering this new "worker" species is to make them from something other than monkeys, things like slugs or spiders would be ideal. Under no circumstances would we want them to have anything resembling a face.
The problem with using monkeys is that we can pick up a fair amount of information about how they're feeling from their faces and body language ( being similar to our own ) and that leads us to empathise with them which isn't ideal if the purpose is to treat them like biological robots and work them until they drop dead. Giant spiders, slugs or whatever are things whose feeling we can't easily see and which are alien enough for the majority of people not to have any empathy with them.
I don't see her denying any of that anywhere, do you ?
She may well be claiming that somebody took a photo of her (possibly from a legitimate ID) and used it to make a fake ID with her name on it
She may well be, but in fact she isn't. She's confirming that its her photo and her signature on a fake ID which was used in a bar.
If she's trying to claim she has never seen this fake ID before and she was never in the bar and she has no idea how the forger got hold of her signature and photograph and she has no clue how someone looking exactly like her with backup identification in her name came to be in that bar with people who are her friends then good luck to her but in my opinion she'd be an idiot to claim that.
For one thing there may well still be fingerprints of hers or DNA on that ID which is just one thing ( amonst many ) which would blow her claims out of the water.
If you're an underage drinker in the UK all you have to do is find the right pub. I think I would have raised numerous red flags in my youth but through choosing the right bar I always got a drink.
1) The 1st time I was in the bar I was confused by the huge array of beer and asked for a pint with a bit of everything in it - "Er, can I have some of that mild, and er some Bass and some of this one too please ? No, just in the one glass"
2) We would spend numerous nights in the pub once we'd collectively ran out money sharing half a lager between 8 of us and leaving an inexplicable pile of cans on the floor under the table.
3) Celebrating the 18th birthday of various members of our group in fine style in the same bar.
The funniest thing though was on a school camping holiday where we drank in the same bar most nights for 2 weeks, half way through the holiday someone was shouting the police were outside and about to raid the pub so my friend got very nervous ( and was drunk ) and said to the barmaid - "Oh my god, I'm only 16 where can I get out ? Help ! Help !". When he came in the next night and tried to buy a drink from the same bar maid he was very surprised when she refused to serve him. They still let the rest of us buy him drinks though.
How do you know that the only witness was the bar tender, I think it highly likely that any other bar staff in the area would be able to testify to Ashley being in the bar and carrying faked ID not to mention any regulars, door staff or a hundred and one other people.
Ashleys comments certainly indicate she was in the bar that night and that the faked ID belongs to her, yes she can claim this is all some huge impersonation to discredit her but I can't see anyone buying that one.
Ashley could only claim copyright on the photo if she took the photo herself. Given that she is admitting she took the photo, that she was in the bar with that faked ID and that she is under the age of 21 it's not going to be all that hard for anyone to convict her of creating, owning and using fake id which is pretty much bound to have much more severe penalties than a rather dubious case of copyright infringement.
Ashely sounds like a grade a A idiot to me it's nice there are people like Rachel around to point that out and show what they have to put up with when trying to run a bar.
The Ashley Heyer we're talking about, the Ashely Heyer who's a criminal because she uses faked ID and attempts to buy alcohol even though she is underage is the same Ashley Heyer that lived at 3601 NW 92nd Place-- in Polk City IA 50226.
And this same criminal Ashley Heyer then attempted to conduct a mean spirited and stupid campaign of hatred against the bar tender who was upholding the law and preventing Ashley Heyer from illegally drinking whilst underage. That Ashley Heyer sounds like a total moron to me !
There's nothing wrong with taunting and humiliating criminals especially criminals who choose to attempt to carry out their criminal activity in your bar putting your business and your livelyhood on the line.
If you're saying that Rachel should keep quiet for fear of reprisals from criminals such as Ashely Heyer then I say you're wrong, people shouldn't let criminals dictate their actions and shouldn't give in to any intimidation Ashley Heyer may decide to organise over this.
I was on holiday in New York ( from the UK ) a few years ago when I was 27 or 28 or something. In the UK I haven't been asked for ID since I was 15 so it was quite surprising the amount of places I was asked in NY.
It was even more surprising and not a little annoying when morons in some bars wouldn't even accept my passport as valid ID !
I think this Ashley person comes across as a slackjawed idiot whereas Rachel seems like an amusing person to know. I don't think Ashley will get very far with this ridiculous behaviour.
I was interested by that too, it doesn't really say what they mean by soon though which when you're talking about galactic events can mean anything from really soon ( next week ) to in a couple of million years.
Personally I'd love to see this, provided of course that it wasn't the last thing I ever saw, very briefly.
Obviously not but you'd probably not be allowed to bug their rooms or rifle through their stuff to provide the police with their bank details or whatever.
That's rubbish, there's nothing wrong with having a drink or being drunk - provided of course that one isn't constantly drinking and drunk to the exclusion of all else so I find it highly unlikely that the University is avoiding giving certificates to anyone of it's students who has ever had a drink.
I know lots of teachers and most of them dedicate a fair amount of time to drinking but I don't think any of them actually run courses on it in the class room and personally I'd much rather a drunk was teaching my kids than some fundamentalist religious nutcase.
Slashdot Mirror
What the BBC need to do now is deploy Paxman. Tom Davis would go down in the first round.
I got caught some Dianetics people in the early 90s who were also offering a free personality test. Luckily I had read up on exactly what Dianetics was a few weeks beforehand and decided to go to see if it was really like I had read it was.
First of all they showed me some video and then I filled in a questionaire or something and went for a private interview with one of their practioners. He was trying to insinuate that I had psychological problems by asking things like "So, what do you regret most in life then eh ?". "Actually, nothing. I am very happy with my life - how about you ?". He was getting more and more frustrated by me insisting that life and great and I was the worlds best example of a rounded, well adjusted human being and in the end explained his theory about how auditing can help erase bad influences in my psyche so I asked him to explain exactly, scientifically, how this process worked and disagreed with everything he said. This carried on for 10 minutes or so and then he lost his temper when I told him that from what I'd heard so far he was peddling a load of nonsense and would be well advised to get out while he could. Then he accused me of being a reporter and wouldn't say anything else. He just sat there and wouldn't talk at all. I sat there for another couple of minutes or so reading a book I had just bought in town until he got up and left the room without saying anything.
All in all it was a very strange experience.
Specifically a human sacrifice who has come of his own free will.
What he's doing isn't determined by what I choose to think he's doing. The fact is that he has no psychic powers and is unable to read minds.
There may be people out there who have never heard of Uri Geller, he might turn up in their town one day and set up a stall reading peoples minds for cash. Some of the people who see him may think "Huh, who is this guy ? Is this for real, can he really be doing magic, should I give him my money ?" and these people may decide to look on the internet for further information. If Uri Geller has successfully stifled all discussion or evidence that he is really just a stage magician using simple tricks to fool people then this is a very dangerous situation. Obviously he's not in the same as scientoligists when it comes to this sort of activity and that's a good thing but not a reason to let him get a foot on the ladder.
This is an excellent illustration of how people can abuse things like copyrights to attempt to prop up their own dubious practices.
Clearly Uri Geller has no "psychic" abilities whatsoever and yet he has built his career on claims that he does and this is how he earns his money. Rather than offering scientifically measured demonstrations of his "powers" he attempts instead to simply keep his critics silent. Obviously this is totally reprehensible behaviour which shares some similarity with the behaviour of record companies whoes original purpose is rapidly diminishing and are also using copyright laws to prop themselves up.
I don't think the answer is necessarily changing the laws of copyright ( except correcting the ludicrous length of time protection can be claimed ) but making sure that people claiming it's protection are doing so properly. It would appear in this case there are no copyright violations since Mr Gellers material is only be critised and excerpted which is perfectly legal. Instead I advocate the slaughter of anyone, individuals or entire companies who attempt to abuse copyright laws in this manner. This should send a strong message that the public do want their rights trampled on and will not let individual members suffer bullying and intimidation for larger individuals or companies.
"Dragonlance? All started out awesome, then around the fourth"
Dragonlance was huge steaming pile of unimaginative, derivative crap from the very 1st book, I read up until number 3 and it just got worse and worse and worse.
Gosh really ! Next you'll be telling me the Germans have a well developed and world renowned sense of humour too ?
It's not often I take time out from my high pressure and high profile work ( which I am currently excelling at, smashing all targets once again for the 12th consecutive year ) to comment on /. but I will make an exception in this case.
:-(
A lot of people have, quite rightly, highly praised my work for charity and the modest advances I have been able to bring to many areas of scientific endeavour and whilst I am obviously too modest to trumpet these achievments myself it would be nice if future employers or business partners were able to locate them on the web.
Employers especially can often be faced with seemingly excellent prospective employees only to find later on the full details of their sordid obsessions have been documented fully on the web for years. For myself, an excellent choice for almost any position you would want to fill, I welcome scrutiny on the web since I am confident this will simply highlight my excellent skills at driving projects forward and delivering truly innovative and groundbreaking solutions ( at a low low price ) not to mention my near legendary interpersonal and team building skills and a level of honesty which has in some quarters become a byword for "Solid Gold Standard".
Certainly it has been said that there is no finer employee than myself to truly add value to any business and that as a business partner I cannot be beaten.
It's just tragic that the network appears to be moving ahead of the scientists at this point and appears to be in the throes of some sort of dementia with regards to information about me. I think it's mistaken me for someone else
Duh ! You do realise the documents are written in German don't you and I haven't seen anything written in German on the web so far so who's going to be able to read it ? Who actually uses German nowadays !
Talking about thefts I was working at an office once which had been broken into overnight. One of my colleagues usually got to work quite early before everyone else and he did that day too.
Obviously the thieves weren't very efficient because they'd left a load of computers and other things lying around. My colleague loaded as many of them as he could into his car drove home and turned up an hour later so where he was horrified to discover the break in.
Fuckwit ?
There's been a number of occasions when I've bought stuff and the staff have forgotten to remove the security tags or they haven't been deactivated properly. At the moment that only means you might set off the alarm on the way out of the store or in other stores but with this system it may mean you get home and find the DVD is unplayable which means a trip back to the store for a replacement.
A good point, I suggest we assume from the beginning they will try to revolt and treat them as criminal terrorists from the outset. I'm sure if we remain vigilant and strong they will not succeed.
The best bet when we're engineering this new "worker" species is to make them from something other than monkeys, things like slugs or spiders would be ideal. Under no circumstances would we want them to have anything resembling a face.
The problem with using monkeys is that we can pick up a fair amount of information about how they're feeling from their faces and body language ( being similar to our own ) and that leads us to empathise with them which isn't ideal if the purpose is to treat them like biological robots and work them until they drop dead. Giant spiders, slugs or whatever are things whose feeling we can't easily see and which are alien enough for the majority of people not to have any empathy with them.
She may well be, but in fact she isn't. She's confirming that its her photo and her signature on a fake ID which was used in a bar.
If she's trying to claim she has never seen this fake ID before and she was never in the bar and she has no idea how the forger got hold of her signature and photograph and she has no clue how someone looking exactly like her with backup identification in her name came to be in that bar with people who are her friends then good luck to her but in my opinion she'd be an idiot to claim that.
For one thing there may well still be fingerprints of hers or DNA on that ID which is just one thing ( amonst many ) which would blow her claims out of the water.
Looks like a nice place, I'll definitely check it out when I'm in the area next and give Rachel some support.
If you're an underage drinker in the UK all you have to do is find the right pub. I think I would have raised numerous red flags in my youth but through choosing the right bar I always got a drink.
1) The 1st time I was in the bar I was confused by the huge array of beer and asked for a pint with a bit of everything in it - "Er, can I have some of that mild, and er some Bass and some of this one too please ? No, just in the one glass"
2) We would spend numerous nights in the pub once we'd collectively ran out money sharing half a lager between 8 of us and leaving an inexplicable pile of cans on the floor under the table.
3) Celebrating the 18th birthday of various members of our group in fine style in the same bar.
The funniest thing though was on a school camping holiday where we drank in the same bar most nights for 2 weeks, half way through the holiday someone was shouting the police were outside and about to raid the pub so my friend got very nervous ( and was drunk ) and said to the barmaid - "Oh my god, I'm only 16 where can I get out ? Help ! Help !". When he came in the next night and tried to buy a drink from the same bar maid he was very surprised when she refused to serve him. They still let the rest of us buy him drinks though.
How do you know that the only witness was the bar tender, I think it highly likely that any other bar staff in the area would be able to testify to Ashley being in the bar and carrying faked ID not to mention any regulars, door staff or a hundred and one other people.
Ashleys comments certainly indicate she was in the bar that night and that the faked ID belongs to her, yes she can claim this is all some huge impersonation to discredit her but I can't see anyone buying that one.
Ashley could only claim copyright on the photo if she took the photo herself. Given that she is admitting she took the photo, that she was in the bar with that faked ID and that she is under the age of 21 it's not going to be all that hard for anyone to convict her of creating, owning and using fake id which is pretty much bound to have much more severe penalties than a rather dubious case of copyright infringement.
Ashely sounds like a grade a A idiot to me it's nice there are people like Rachel around to point that out and show what they have to put up with when trying to run a bar.
So let me just get that all straight in my head.
The Ashley Heyer we're talking about, the Ashely Heyer who's a criminal because she uses faked ID and attempts to buy alcohol even though she is underage is the same Ashley Heyer that lived at 3601 NW 92nd Place-- in Polk City IA 50226.
And this same criminal Ashley Heyer then attempted to conduct a mean spirited and stupid campaign of hatred against the bar tender who was upholding the law and preventing Ashley Heyer from illegally drinking whilst underage. That Ashley Heyer sounds like a total moron to me !
There's nothing wrong with taunting and humiliating criminals especially criminals who choose to attempt to carry out their criminal activity in your bar putting your business and your livelyhood on the line.
If you're saying that Rachel should keep quiet for fear of reprisals from criminals such as Ashely Heyer then I say you're wrong, people shouldn't let criminals dictate their actions and shouldn't give in to any intimidation Ashley Heyer may decide to organise over this.
I was on holiday in New York ( from the UK ) a few years ago when I was 27 or 28 or something. In the UK I haven't been asked for ID since I was 15 so it was quite surprising the amount of places I was asked in NY.
It was even more surprising and not a little annoying when morons in some bars wouldn't even accept my passport as valid ID !
I think this Ashley person comes across as a slackjawed idiot whereas Rachel seems like an amusing person to know. I don't think Ashley will get very far with this ridiculous behaviour.
I was interested by that too, it doesn't really say what they mean by soon though which when you're talking about galactic events can mean anything from really soon ( next week ) to in a couple of million years.
Personally I'd love to see this, provided of course that it wasn't the last thing I ever saw, very briefly.
Obviously not but you'd probably not be allowed to bug their rooms or rifle through their stuff to provide the police with their bank details or whatever.
That's rubbish, there's nothing wrong with having a drink or being drunk - provided of course that one isn't constantly drinking and drunk to the exclusion of all else so I find it highly unlikely that the University is avoiding giving certificates to anyone of it's students who has ever had a drink.
I know lots of teachers and most of them dedicate a fair amount of time to drinking but I don't think any of them actually run courses on it in the class room and personally I'd much rather a drunk was teaching my kids than some fundamentalist religious nutcase.