Flash also can retrieve data faster. In its own tests, SanDisk says its flash drive can boot up Windows Vista -- the next version of the Windows operating system -- in 35 seconds, 28 seconds faster than the 55-second boot-up time required with a conventional drive.
Dodgy maths aside, I don't think that's a very technical report. Maybe YOU ought to RTFA !
... we will have to have another revolution against a tyrannical King George.
Do you even know your own history ?
The conflict between Britain and her American colonists was triggered by the financial costs of the Anglo-French wars of the previous thirty years, in particular the Seven Years War (1756-63). A principal theatre of conflict had been in North America, where it was felt that the colonials had failed to play their part either financially or in the fighting. In the years immediately after the war, the army in North America consumed 4% of British government spending. This cost, combined with the victories over the French had increased British interest in their colonies. Ironically, those victories had also removed one element tying the Americans to Britain - fear of French strangulation. In 1756, the French held Canada, the Ohio Valley and the Mississippi, isolating the British colonies on the eastern seaboard. By 1763 that threat had been removed. snip
The next increase in the tension came in 1765 with the Stamp Act and a trade act know as the Sugar Act. It was the Stamp Act that caused the most protest. This was a direct tax, levied on the paper required for legal transactions and on newspapers. It had been proposed in 1764, and the Americans had been given the year to suggest alternative methods of raising the money needed to administer and defend the colonies. Instead, this year was used to organise opposition to the act. Source Historyofwar.org.
Notice how I bolded the section where the Americans were given a year to come up with an alternative means to raise money to defend *themselves* !
King George had as much to do with the Revolution as Queen Elizabeth has had to do with the war in Iraq ! The British monarchy had had no *power* for over 100 years *before* the War of Independence.
My good sir, if you are outside, in PUBLIC, you have NO expectation of privacy.
Err, yes you do. If a member of the public decides to follow me around everywhere, then they can be prosecuted for stalking. Are the cameras subject to the same rules ? Or the camera operators ? What about in the middle of the night, when everybody is asleep ? I would have some expectation of privacy then. Or do you suggest we have a curfew between 6pm to 6am ? That way, anybody outside after dark is a criminal. That's the way it's going. If you are caught on camera, then you are part of the data they use to monitor everyone, whether you were committing a crime or not. They have no right to keep my image in a database for just being in a certain place at a certain time. So far that in itself is not illegal.
Freedom to break the law is the whole basis of freedom.
Without that freedom, there is no such thing as "society". Society depends on people behaving in a certain way because they *want to* not because they fear the consequences. Without that freedom, we are all just drones, subject to the whims of our masters.
Where I live, some little assholes think it's clever to break car door mirrors. They often do the whole street. Even if the police were to catch them they would not get any punishment, because they are usually under the age of responsibility. I would like the "privacy" to go out and give them a slap, make the consequences a bit more real and immediate. But I can't do that because I would get prosecuted for assault. Will cameras fix this ? No, they just maintain the status quo. And therefore society suffers.
You seem to be forgetting that the police have a vested interest in catching people doing something wrong. So they are all in favour of using whatever means to watch people as much as possible with as little effort. This is wrong. The way society used to deal with it was within the family. Due to the growth of the nanny culture, parents feel no responsibility for their kids actions anymore. And no-one else should need to feel responsible for those kids actions either. Hence, no-one cares, and the problem grows, then we need more police and more cameras ! It's time to reverse the trend and go back to the way it used to be.
When I was a kid, we all used to get into trouble frequently, riding motorbikes, trespassing, even stealing from shops. We nearly always got caught, and it wasn't the police that were the worry, it was the actions of our parents when we got taken home. After a while, it wasn't worth the hassle anymore so we started acting responsibly. These days, the parents will lie outright to protect a child from the consequences of their own actions. So who is teaching the responsibility now ?
</RANT>
I just don't like an effectively unelected body having control on what I do and when. I don't like being told what to do at the best of times. Especially when I have a need to pursue a certain course of action, and some little hitler says I can't do it. Example - On a flight from LA to Seattle, I have been in the bar at LAX for a couple of hours, after flying in from New Zealand. Consequently while I was waiting for the plane to take off, I felt the need to take a leak. I figured I could wait a few minutes until we were in the air, but as we taxied and slowly starting climbing, the urge became too great. So I got up and went to the rear of the plane to use the toilet. Immediately, the steward started complaining, and said "You have to sit down until the seatbelt light goes out". I explained I needed the toilet, and he just said "Sir, I'm here to tell you that you must remain in your seat until the seatbelt light goes out !". So, I replied, "Well I'm here to tell you that the seat is going to be a bit wet if I don't get into the toilet NOW". He made a face and let me use the toilet. So why all the fuss ? Just the assumption that he was in charge and I was going against his commands. I can imagine doing that these days - I would probably get shot by an air marshal just for needing a piss !
Re:Profit Yaweh Can Summon UFO's On Command
on
UFOs In the News
·
· Score: 1
Unfortunately, the assholes from the planet Macromedia have made sure I never see the evidence !
While what you say is true, it veers away from the fact that at present you can tell if your food has been genetically engineered or raised on a chemical soup. Under the proposed system you would have no choice. Ok, maybe the clones offspring are organically raised and even tucked into bed at night, but they were initially produced from a non-natural source. Surely that's just as relevant as what they were fed on ? Just because it makes the farmer richer is no reason to abandon relevant disclosure.
Firstly, my opposition is to the no labeling part. Surely a label stating "Produced from cloned parents" or "Genetically Engineered Produce" gives the consumer a choice in the decision of which produce to buy ? It shouldn't matter whether the meat is any less (or more) fit for consumption than "normal". To unilaterally decree that it isn't necessary is just totalitarian nonsense.
The problem: If you produce a clone of a particularly desirable bull, then use that bull to produce generations of cattle for food, there would be no cause to label the food cattle as clones, because they wouldn't be. They would be results of "normal" matings. But that doesn't mean that they don't have the same traits in their DNA as the original clone. How far back in the family tree would you have to go to determine whether an animal was a clone ?
Also, it seems a little far fetched that just the bull would be cloned for desirable DNA. After all, mating with a regular cow would introduce fresh DNA into the offspring, which might offset the benefits of the cloned bull. So, you would really try to find the ideal combination of best bull and best cow, and clone both, then mate both continually for the subsequent offspring.
Of course, none of those offspring would need to be labeled "clone" either as they were the result of natural matings.
Secondly, if you allow me the premise above (both sexes cloned), I fail to see how the constant reproduction of a stagnant gene pool would be beneficial to anyone, either to us as food, or to the long term survival prospects of cattle in general. I see this as similar to cutting down the Amazon rain forest before we know what valuable resources we are destroying. What happens years down the road, when the type of bull and cow we have fostered as the only profitable type, become less suitable for the conditions in which we find ourselves (global warming / different available feedstuff) ? Are we going to set up a global DNA store of all available DNA variations, just in case we need them later ?
So, just to reiterate, how can the possible long term effects of a process, which are eminently unknowable, be ignored in favour of a policy of deliberate concealment from the people who will be the ones to suffer those consequences ?
By forcing the labelling of clone sourced meat, we allow the freedom to choose. Even if 90% of the population "choose" to buy the cloned produce, there will exist a market for the "all natural" product. Without labelling, there can be no differentiation, so no market. While that market exists, so too does the natural variability in the cattles DNA strains.
Re:Be sure to *look* at them first
on
Plasma or LCD?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
... comparably-priced plasmas looked a LOT better than their LCD counterparts. Their color and contrast was way better (more vivid and rich) than the LCD's (which looked grayish and "washed-out").
You do realise that they turn the brightness / contrast up way too high in stores to compensate for the fluorescent lighting.
For example, the flight from Los Angeles, USA to Sydney, Australia takes somewhere around 18 hours today (depending on the jet stream).
No, actually it takes around 13.5 to 14.5 hours. I have done that trip twice and it never came close to 18 hours.
I don't know what you mean by "depending on the jet stream" as the jet stream is pretty much constant. The only things that increase the total time spent traveling are stopovers or connecting flights. Check out the flight times at Expedia.
Also, I don't think you would get much of a view, as the windows would be a critical point of failure and thus either be very small, or non-existant. You may as well be asleep for the flight.
Another thing to bear in mind is bandwidth. A Boeing 747 can carry over 420 people. Good luck making a sub orbital craft that can get 420 people and their luggage half way round the world in 2 hours. Even if it could carry 100 people at a time, it would take 5 trips at 2 hours each, plus turn round time at each end. So it would use more fuel and take longer overall. Waste of time and money.
And remember--this is the PUBLIC engaging in a type of surveillance on the PUBLIC. For the tinfoil hats out there, it's not just the government's watchful eye you have to be careful around; it's that video-capable cellphone in the hands of the seemingly innocent rider sitting across from you on the train, too.
They should do like they do with digital cameras on phones, make them make a sound when they are being used:
Fedora is all about developers because it is all about development
It has never set out to be a user oriented system. It only exists to push the envelope. If you choose to use it in any of its incarnations, you have to accept that. Otherwise, install RHEL or Ubuntu.
And no, that wasn't meant as a flame, it's the truth. Is Ubuntu based on Debian unstable, is RHEL based on FC6 ?
But we aren't in that game anymore. There is no longer a 20 minute window in which someone has to decide to launch a nuclear counterstrike based on a fairly narrow band of incoming data. No terrorist group - indeed, very few nations - are capable of the "mutual" in "Mutually Assured Destruction".
Males piss on things to mark their territory, they don't have to emit an odour constantly . Males also hunt so need to be inconspicuous. Males sniff the air to tell if a female is on heat. Females don't have to smell males because the males seek them out, and they also don't have to worry about steering clear of a males territory. Females of any animal species smell more than the males, by design.
Maybe we should get on to the fact that if you have several women living together in close proximity, pretty soon their periods synchronise. Oooh, animal behaviour - it's so *bohemian*.
I'm pretty sure that all mammal species share the same kind of hormones, so if you take a menstruating woman out hunting then any mammal in the area is going to smell her before they smell a male.
Of course if you had ever spent any time near animals then you would know this. (and no, tibbles doesn't count, his smell is overpowered by yours, unless you left his nutz on of course)
An electric heating element can turn black very quickly after you turn it off but is still hot enough to burn. I would rather be able to see when the element is on than risk my 2yo son burning his hand on one that looks like it's cool but isn't.
I am going off at a tangent here, but as the post have mainly gone towards the sex angle, I thought I'd bring it up.
Here in the UK, I was reading a Littlewoods mail order catalogue (just for christmas gift ideas) and came across a new toy for young girls.
It's a *POLE DANCING* kit !
What is wrong with this picture ? I mean, have the womens liberation movement ceased to exist ? I mentioned this to a friend of mine and he replied that he already knew about it, and that his daughter had been doing it as a course at school ! WTF.
I am all for liberisation etc, but surely this is a bit over the top. I mean, do they teach these children what the fucking pole represents ?
I tried to get to Littlewoods website to find a link, but the net is slow here right now, google has some good links to a story on it though, as it appears Tesco had a similar product. I remember a time when women got pissed off if you bought a young girl a pram and a doll, now apparently we can train them to be erotic dancers, at public expense ! Jesus H Christ, on a bike. What's next, My Little Pony Fuck 'n' Suck outfits, Crotchless panties (age 5 to 6), Leather gear for the discerning 8 year old ?
Amazon have the same product and it even includes toy dollars ! They also have a toy lapdancing kit, which seems to have the words "not a toy" hastily tacked onto the description.
Sometimes you do actually have to think of the children.
I happened to catch the "Click" programme when it was shown on TV on Saturday morning. Firstly, to anyone who has not seen this programme before, it is trying very hard to be "cool" and pretends to know the "scene", but in actual fact is neither. They typically get all exited about old news and push it like it's the next big thing.
That said, what irritated me about this particular show, was they started the section about the passport by saying things like "We all have grown used to being protected by our passports" and "the passport system has protected our borders for generations". Tossers. Passports have never "protected" anything, and I resent being spoken to like a 6 year old.
Anyway, quality content it is not.
As a side effect of watching this, and also just my general dislike of all the crap regarding "terrorism" recently, I found myself in a discussion with a friend about the general state of the law here in the UK. First point was the proposed 90 day detention without charge. My friend is all in favour of this law. He believes that "if you've got nothing to hide" then what's the problem. He also believes that the police won't be coming after the likes of "us", just the terrorists (ie. people of asian appearance, Muslims etc). This of course led on to why he believes that is justified. Of course he is a closet racist, so he is never going to side with anybody not "English".
The argument got twisted into discussing WW2, and whether we would all be speaking German, unless the USA had come to our aid. He hates the idea of Hitler and all that he stood for. So, at the risk of invoking Godwin, I tried to point out that Hitlers main approach in the early days, was to blame the Jews for all of Germanys problems, thereby providing the scapegoat to distract attention away from his intentions. And here we are 60 years later with the Muslims being blamed for all societies ills, while in the meantime, a massive power grab by the government is taking place under our noses. My friend also believes that all new born children should have their DNA sampled at birth, and kept in a database, so that in the future, whenever a crime is committed, the police can grab a sample from the scene, and instantly know who committed the crime. How can you reason with someone with that attitude ?
I tried the approach which says that we are all supposed to be free human beings, not farm animals, catalogued and monitored 24/7 but he doesn't accept that. I pointed out that the DNA would only identify a criminal, not locate that person, but apparently that's not an issue either. Even the fact that DNA is not a 100% reliable method, didn't matter to him. Even making the point that the government has a vested interest in making *everybody* a criminal didn't seem to sink in. He still believes that if you are doing nothing wrong.... I was brought up on the notion that freedom meant freedom to break the law. It is a personal moral choice, and cannot be imposed upon us. What good is a system unless everybody feels some responsibility towards it ?
I can't find a way to get him to engage his mind on this issue objectively. He has the capacity to understand, but seems to be a perfect example of the indoctrinated mindset that has been fostered here over the last few years. There was a glimmer of hope, when, as he was raving about all muslims being terrorists, I pointed out that that obviously wasn't true, I know people from Iran and other Muslim countries and none of them are terrorists, they are mostly all just people the same as us, just trying to get by in life. It is the public perception of these people that has been manipulated by the government and the media, to bend us to their will. My friend went quiet for a few moments at this point, not being able to directly refute it. But I don't think that was enough to change his attitude.
Does anybody know what the estimates are for total number of terrorists in the
Actually the French put it there to keep the French out !
Seriously, you do know that England was invaded by the Normans in 1066 don't you ? And that most of the conflict thereafter was between relatives on either side of the channel, trying to get control of the others dominions. Linkage
Also, the North-West region of France is called Bretagne (Brittany) and the island where England is, is called Grande Bretagne (Bigger Brittany || Great Britain).
If you knew enough to download it for him you should have known enough to turn on antialiasing for font sizes 8 and lower in the options menu.
And if you knew end-users enough to comment on them, you should have known enough that end-users won't know how to turn this on.
See, software shouldn't "get in the way" of what you're trying to do.
Oh dear, looks like this Microsoft Word Code Execution Exploit just "got in the way". So the end user is still at risk, is out of pocket by $cost_of_office, and exposed to malware, all for the sake of actually learning how to use a tool properly.
Never mind, eh. I expect MS will have it fixed soon. Maybe you can play solitaire while you wait.
Here I am installing FC5 as I speak, specifically to set up MythTv.
I have tried getting my tv cards working on a currently installed FC4 but had no real luck, and didn't fancy ruining a perfectly functioning media server just to experiment. The cards definitely work BTW (dvb_bt8xx Zarlink MT352). I have a spare HD so I tried installing a live cd version of PCLinuxOS which has been remastered to concentrate on MythTV. Unfortunately, the damn installer kept complaining that I needed to reboot to make the changes to fstab before I could format the drive. After every reboot the drive was still not set up, and the partitions had been rearranged. When run as a live cd the mythbackend can't write to the dbase because it's on a read only mount point ! So I gave up on that and decided to follow the instructions here. I went for FC5 because I already had it on dvd. But the initial yum update was 700 MB and so it's still running. I haven't got much further yet, so I may investigate this new distro.
Slashdot Mirror
Then you can have an opinion.
It's China next then ?
Where it says this ?Dodgy maths aside, I don't think that's a very technical report. Maybe YOU ought to RTFA !
Notice how I bolded the section where the Americans were given a year to come up with an alternative means to raise money to defend *themselves* !
King George had as much to do with the Revolution as Queen Elizabeth has had to do with the war in Iraq ! The British monarchy had had no *power* for over 100 years *before* the War of Independence.
Err, yes you do. If a member of the public decides to follow me around everywhere, then they can be prosecuted for stalking. Are the cameras subject to the same rules ? Or the camera operators ? What about in the middle of the night, when everybody is asleep ? I would have some expectation of privacy then. Or do you suggest we have a curfew between 6pm to 6am ? That way, anybody outside after dark is a criminal. That's the way it's going. If you are caught on camera, then you are part of the data they use to monitor everyone, whether you were committing a crime or not. They have no right to keep my image in a database for just being in a certain place at a certain time. So far that in itself is not illegal.
Freedom to break the law is the whole basis of freedom.
Without that freedom, there is no such thing as "society". Society depends on people behaving in a certain way because they *want to* not because they fear the consequences. Without that freedom, we are all just drones, subject to the whims of our masters.
Where I live, some little assholes think it's clever to break car door mirrors. They often do the whole street. Even if the police were to catch them they would not get any punishment, because they are usually under the age of responsibility. I would like the "privacy" to go out and give them a slap, make the consequences a bit more real and immediate. But I can't do that because I would get prosecuted for assault. Will cameras fix this ? No, they just maintain the status quo. And therefore society suffers.
You seem to be forgetting that the police have a vested interest in catching people doing something wrong. So they are all in favour of using whatever means to watch people as much as possible with as little effort. This is wrong. The way society used to deal with it was within the family. Due to the growth of the nanny culture, parents feel no responsibility for their kids actions anymore. And no-one else should need to feel responsible for those kids actions either. Hence, no-one cares, and the problem grows, then we need more police and more cameras ! It's time to reverse the trend and go back to the way it used to be.
When I was a kid, we all used to get into trouble frequently, riding motorbikes, trespassing, even stealing from shops. We nearly always got caught, and it wasn't the police that were the worry, it was the actions of our parents when we got taken home. After a while, it wasn't worth the hassle anymore so we started acting responsibly. These days, the parents will lie outright to protect a child from the consequences of their own actions. So who is teaching the responsibility now ?
</RANT>
I just don't like an effectively unelected body having control on what I do and when. I don't like being told what to do at the best of times. Especially when I have a need to pursue a certain course of action, and some little hitler says I can't do it. Example - On a flight from LA to Seattle, I have been in the bar at LAX for a couple of hours, after flying in from New Zealand. Consequently while I was waiting for the plane to take off, I felt the need to take a leak. I figured I could wait a few minutes until we were in the air, but as we taxied and slowly starting climbing, the urge became too great. So I got up and went to the rear of the plane to use the toilet. Immediately, the steward started complaining, and said "You have to sit down until the seatbelt light goes out". I explained I needed the toilet, and he just said "Sir, I'm here to tell you that you must remain in your seat until the seatbelt light goes out !". So, I replied, "Well I'm here to tell you that the seat is going to be a bit wet if I don't get into the toilet NOW". He made a face and let me use the toilet. So why all the fuss ? Just the assumption that he was in charge and I was going against his commands. I can imagine doing that these days - I would probably get shot by an air marshal just for needing a piss !
Unfortunately, the assholes from the planet Macromedia have made sure I never see the evidence !
While what you say is true, it veers away from the fact that at present you can tell if your food has been genetically engineered or raised on a chemical soup. Under the proposed system you would have no choice. Ok, maybe the clones offspring are organically raised and even tucked into bed at night, but they were initially produced from a non-natural source. Surely that's just as relevant as what they were fed on ? Just because it makes the farmer richer is no reason to abandon relevant disclosure.
Firstly, my opposition is to the no labeling part. Surely a label stating "Produced from cloned parents" or "Genetically Engineered Produce" gives the consumer a choice in the decision of which produce to buy ? It shouldn't matter whether the meat is any less (or more) fit for consumption than "normal". To unilaterally decree that it isn't necessary is just totalitarian nonsense.
The problem:
If you produce a clone of a particularly desirable bull, then use that bull to produce generations of cattle for food, there would be no cause to label the food cattle as clones, because they wouldn't be. They would be results of "normal" matings. But that doesn't mean that they don't have the same traits in their DNA as the original clone. How far back in the family tree would you have to go to determine whether an animal was a clone ?
Also, it seems a little far fetched that just the bull would be cloned for desirable DNA. After all, mating with a regular cow would introduce fresh DNA into the offspring, which might offset the benefits of the cloned bull. So, you would really try to find the ideal combination of best bull and best cow, and clone both, then mate both continually for the subsequent offspring.
Of course, none of those offspring would need to be labeled "clone" either as they were the result of natural matings.
Secondly, if you allow me the premise above (both sexes cloned), I fail to see how the constant reproduction of a stagnant gene pool would be beneficial to anyone, either to us as food, or to the long term survival prospects of cattle in general. I see this as similar to cutting down the Amazon rain forest before we know what valuable resources we are destroying. What happens years down the road, when the type of bull and cow we have fostered as the only profitable type, become less suitable for the conditions in which we find ourselves (global warming / different available feedstuff) ? Are we going to set up a global DNA store of all available DNA variations, just in case we need them later ?
So, just to reiterate, how can the possible long term effects of a process, which are eminently unknowable, be ignored in favour of a policy of deliberate concealment from the people who will be the ones to suffer those consequences ?
By forcing the labelling of clone sourced meat, we allow the freedom to choose. Even if 90% of the population "choose" to buy the cloned produce, there will exist a market for the "all natural" product. Without labelling, there can be no differentiation, so no market. While that market exists, so too does the natural variability in the cattles DNA strains.
And that is a Good Thing ®
read any Hansard recently ?
There, fixed that for you !
I don't know what you mean by "depending on the jet stream" as the jet stream is pretty much constant. The only things that increase the total time spent traveling are stopovers or connecting flights. Check out the flight times at Expedia.
Also, I don't think you would get much of a view, as the windows would be a critical point of failure and thus either be very small, or non-existant. You may as well be asleep for the flight.
Another thing to bear in mind is bandwidth. A Boeing 747 can carry over 420 people. Good luck making a sub orbital craft that can get 420 people and their luggage half way round the world in 2 hours. Even if it could carry 100 people at a time, it would take 5 trips at 2 hours each, plus turn round time at each end. So it would use more fuel and take longer overall. Waste of time and money.
But can he see it at the same time, and would that make a difference anyway ?
.... aaand ACTION ! - *whir-whir-whir-whir* CUT !
It has never set out to be a user oriented system. It only exists to push the envelope. If you choose to use it in any of its incarnations, you have to accept that. Otherwise, install RHEL or Ubuntu.
And no, that wasn't meant as a flame, it's the truth. Is Ubuntu based on Debian unstable, is RHEL based on FC6 ?Jack Bauer
Maybe we should get on to the fact that if you have several women living together in close proximity, pretty soon their periods synchronise. Oooh, animal behaviour - it's so *bohemian*.
I'm pretty sure that all mammal species share the same kind of hormones, so if you take a menstruating woman out hunting then any mammal in the area is going to smell her before they smell a male.Of course if you had ever spent any time near animals then you would know this. (and no, tibbles doesn't count, his smell is overpowered by yours, unless you left his nutz on of course)
Here in the UK, I was reading a Littlewoods mail order catalogue (just for christmas gift ideas) and came across a new toy for young girls.
It's a *POLE DANCING* kit !
What is wrong with this picture ? I mean, have the womens liberation movement ceased to exist ? I mentioned this to a friend of mine and he replied that he already knew about it, and that his daughter had been doing it as a course at school ! WTF.
I am all for liberisation etc, but surely this is a bit over the top. I mean, do they teach these children what the fucking pole represents ?
I tried to get to Littlewoods website to find a link, but the net is slow here right now, google has some good links to a story on it though, as it appears Tesco had a similar product. I remember a time when women got pissed off if you bought a young girl a pram and a doll, now apparently we can train them to be erotic dancers, at public expense ! Jesus H Christ, on a bike. What's next, My Little Pony Fuck 'n' Suck outfits, Crotchless panties (age 5 to 6), Leather gear for the discerning 8 year old ?
Amazon have the same product and it even includes toy dollars ! They also have a toy lapdancing kit, which seems to have the words "not a toy" hastily tacked onto the description.
Sometimes you do actually have to think of the children.That said, what irritated me about this particular show, was they started the section about the passport by saying things like "We all have grown used to being protected by our passports" and "the passport system has protected our borders for generations". Tossers. Passports have never "protected" anything, and I resent being spoken to like a 6 year old.
Anyway, quality content it is not.
As a side effect of watching this, and also just my general dislike of all the crap regarding "terrorism" recently, I found myself in a discussion with a friend about the general state of the law here in the UK. First point was the proposed 90 day detention without charge. My friend is all in favour of this law. He believes that "if you've got nothing to hide" then what's the problem. He also believes that the police won't be coming after the likes of "us", just the terrorists (ie. people of asian appearance, Muslims etc). This of course led on to why he believes that is justified. Of course he is a closet racist, so he is never going to side with anybody not "English".
The argument got twisted into discussing WW2, and whether we would all be speaking German, unless the USA had come to our aid. He hates the idea of Hitler and all that he stood for. So, at the risk of invoking Godwin, I tried to point out that Hitlers main approach in the early days, was to blame the Jews for all of Germanys problems, thereby providing the scapegoat to distract attention away from his intentions. And here we are 60 years later with the Muslims being blamed for all societies ills, while in the meantime, a massive power grab by the government is taking place under our noses. My friend also believes that all new born children should have their DNA sampled at birth, and kept in a database, so that in the future, whenever a crime is committed, the police can grab a sample from the scene, and instantly know who committed the crime. How can you reason with someone with that attitude ?
I tried the approach which says that we are all supposed to be free human beings, not farm animals, catalogued and monitored 24/7 but he doesn't accept that. I pointed out that the DNA would only identify a criminal, not locate that person, but apparently that's not an issue either. Even the fact that DNA is not a 100% reliable method, didn't matter to him. Even making the point that the government has a vested interest in making *everybody* a criminal didn't seem to sink in. He still believes that if you are doing nothing wrong ....
I was brought up on the notion that freedom meant freedom to break the law. It is a personal moral choice, and cannot be imposed upon us. What good is a system unless everybody feels some responsibility towards it ?
I can't find a way to get him to engage his mind on this issue objectively. He has the capacity to understand, but seems to be a perfect example of the indoctrinated mindset that has been fostered here over the last few years. There was a glimmer of hope, when, as he was raving about all muslims being terrorists, I pointed out that that obviously wasn't true, I know people from Iran and other Muslim countries and none of them are terrorists, they are mostly all just people the same as us, just trying to get by in life. It is the public perception of these people that has been manipulated by the government and the media, to bend us to their will. My friend went quiet for a few moments at this point, not being able to directly refute it. But I don't think that was enough to change his attitude.
Does anybody know what the estimates are for total number of terrorists in the
Actually the French put it there to keep the French out !
Seriously, you do know that England was invaded by the Normans in 1066 don't you ? And that most of the conflict thereafter was between relatives on either side of the channel, trying to get control of the others dominions. Linkage
Also, the North-West region of France is called Bretagne (Brittany) and the island where England is, is called Grande Bretagne (Bigger Brittany || Great Britain).Never mind, eh. I expect MS will have it fixed soon. Maybe you can play solitaire while you wait.
I have tried getting my tv cards working on a currently installed FC4 but had no real luck, and didn't fancy ruining a perfectly functioning media server just to experiment. The cards definitely work BTW (dvb_bt8xx Zarlink MT352). I have a spare HD so I tried installing a live cd version of PCLinuxOS which has been remastered to concentrate on MythTV. Unfortunately, the damn installer kept complaining that I needed to reboot to make the changes to fstab before I could format the drive. After every reboot the drive was still not set up, and the partitions had been rearranged. When run as a live cd the mythbackend can't write to the dbase because it's on a read only mount point ! So I gave up on that and decided to follow the instructions here. I went for FC5 because I already had it on dvd. But the initial yum update was 700 MB and so it's still running. I haven't got much further yet, so I may investigate this new distro.
Don't make me laugh !
Never, ever use printable media for backups. It always lets you down. Nuff said.