Why would they be mentally ill? It's a meta-joke about organised religion, thousands of people chare it and participate in it. It shows that their humanity is leavened with a lovely dose of wit.
For many, even being asked about their religion is seen as an act of oppression. This is their reaction.
I think this partly accounts for the big drop. These people are dying. Your age, occupation and religion were your credentials. My late mother insisted I filled in her online census as a Christian, having never attended a service in my adult life. Even up to her death bed, God, Christ, saints, whoever, were never mentioned, no prayers undertaken, nor was there felt a need for them. But she was happy to be labelled a Christian, as that was her view of what respectable people were.
These generations are vanishing and the new default is agnostic. Brits have always had problems with the overly religious (see Mayflower).
Folklore is an exemplary way of looking at it. Also, the bishops in the Lords are usually left-wing intellectuals, rather than taking the role of conservative demagogues. We therefore don't really care/notice them.
Dear AC,
Congratulations, this perfectly describes the current working of the NHS. However, I don't think the parent poster was having his leg pulled, just fundamentally lied to.
I was in the US for a few months during the 'Obamacare' debate of 2009 and the bollocks that was being talked about the NHS was simply amazing, e.g., people over 59 are denied any heart treatment. Our American hosts asked us if this was true!
My brother works for an Indian pharmaceutical company. India don't recognise patents on medicines. The NHS in the UK pays US 40c for his 6 pills from a blister pack of 'generic' heart medicine. He can sell the same 6 to the USA for > US 5$.
You're being screwed as the cost of pills are tiny as compared to the rest of your healthcare. In the UK, as external costs are visible, they are lower. And wait, did someone say "cartel"?
Car movements and cameras trained at people are very different. By driving a car with numberplates, you automatically have a way for the authorities to recognise you. The automated tracking WILL become an issue, but I'm guessing a little here; nothing public has ever been announced (ssshh, terrorists might be listening). Assume most western countries have something similar or it is planned, even if it's publicly there to reduce the "Police-Action" chases ? Not great, but a long, long way off a viewing-port in every dwelling and 'Enemy of the State' eyes, following our every move.
The Reform Section 5 campaign group will hopefully get their way- the current govt. has to give civil liberties a little boost to calm their right-wingers. This is being actively considered [by government] and it was always a bad clause. However, we're into detail. It's a long, long way from 'no free speech'. See the anti-TSA t-shirt wearing air traveller, just a few stories above, if you want an example closer to home.
Read the small-print after the Myleene Klass affair. She wasn't warned by police. Her agent told the press for a reaction/publicity. It was, hating to repeat myself, total bollocks. Can you find another? Look up Vincent Cooke for a man who killed an intruder in self-defence and take note of the remarks from the judge who last week sentenced the dead man's accomplice.
I think the UK has a long way to go. Many, many important issues are buried within celebrity news nonsense. Our journos and politicos all come from the same, small clique, which has pretty much drawn the wagons around it. However, I've never stuck my head above the political parapet [note to self: an interesting metaphor to choose], so haven't found myself on the end of any ways the state can grind you down- one assumes there are many. For my money, the UK isn't too bad yet and really not the 'Nanny State'. The biggest difference in my adult life is pre- and post-IRA, where many subtle rights have paradoxically disappeared as the authorities are not worrying about 'the terrorists winning' any more.
First of all, none of those links are 'proof'. They are mostly anomalous cases.
1:32 camera ratio includes shops, pubs, clubs; cameras are anywhere where private and public meet. I'm surprised it's not more. I can walk mile-upon-mile of streets in my city with no cameras anywhere. Most street surveillance are concentrated where there's booze and people. There's one hell of a lot of extrapolation in that cited article too.
The 'cult' prosecution didn't last 3 days- see the same page. I read the follow-up article [see link on your cited page] as suggesting the Scientologists had an inside man or two on that one, and as soon as it reached the 'normal' judiciary it was squashed. Also, the City of London has the oddest bye-laws in the country. One swallow doesn't make Britain a sunny country.
Finally, and quite frankly, if Tony Martin is your poster-boy, you have no fucking idea.
Surveillance cameras on every corner. Bollocks. No freedom of speech. Bollocks. No right to self defence. Pretty much bollocks. Encryption keys- you're right. This was part of "Computers are scary" legislation that had too little oversight.
Reduction of freedom from fear of murder counts a lot. No thought that the guy/gal who is being a dick to you will have a gun. Hooray! 8 775 gun murders in USA in 2010 compared with 51 gun murders in UK (popl 1/5 of USA) (12,996 vs 600 total murders). Hooray! No "Please don't let me get sick as we'll have to sell the house". Hoo-fucking-ray.
We have all main road (and city) car movements tracked in real-time through an enormous increase in ANPR, the lack of discussion of which worries me. Boo!
We're not totally free, but with 60 million+ on these small isles, it's a different ball game.
Oh, and the BBC are pretty much the best broadcasters in the world, and I've tried most of the English language competition and much of the European language channels. Come and find the radio- recommend 6 Music and Radio 4. World Service's good too, if you want some proper news.
Several people I have known have appeared to me in my dreams as they died. One recent apparition was during the day, in an idle moment my thoughts were a tumble of old memories of an old acquaintance as they died of cancer (which I was unaware of). They don't haunt me, and only in one case has there been any interaction; someone I went to school with was stabbed, I was shaking him awake in my dreams, although I was 200 miles away at the time. I told his cousin on the Monday morning, after he asked "Did you hear what happened to Mark?" Mark died on the operating table, but was bought back. There have been several other incidences, but nothing supernatural happened when my father died when I was eight, or my mother in my arms a few weeks back.
These are the most amazing events that have happened in my life. I know that were are more than a bunch cells. However, and it's a big however, I also understand that the most likely explanations are I'm a big, fat liar or it's all just coincidences. It's impossible to refute the first, it's all about that beautiful word, trust. I'm also a scientist and understand the concept of proof and how coincidences work. But we're 30 years on, and still haven't dreamed about Mark again.
I'm missing the logical leap in your response. How does a comment referring to the Ulster Plantations and displacement of the Scots somehow justify your racist remark? Are you suggesting that events of 400 years ago are paramount to modern bigotry?
I really, really, hope that you're not suggesting that the British occupation of Northern Ireland means you can simply label every member of a nationality in a derogatory fashion. That really would be an ignorant and dangerous attitude. Even stupid.
There have been several short-falls in capability, there will be many more in the future. Landsat is dead, the follow-on mission is a decade late and produces the same swath width as its illustrious, but 30 year old, predecessors. NPOESS, and its DoD ghost DWSS, are both dead. JPSS doesn't have the same capabilities as those planned on NPOESS or have existed on the DMSP for 25 years or more.
Oceans- Seawifs, the ocean colour satellite from a private company, is dead. Aqua and Terra are getting very old and with ESA's Envisat dead, their MODISs are pretty much the only ocean colour instruments. Where are the US's civilian SARs? Assuming the military have a load, the US haven't launched a civilian one since Seasat in 1978 (it's assumed it saw too much).
Satellites have developed; the early C21st saw an unprecedented increase in environmental monitoring quantity and quality. However, these variables could get very bad, very quickly, through the loss of only a few, already very old, satellites.
I was watching Patriot missiles launches live on the BBC during Gulf War 1. 1,2,3 they went off, but number 3 turned right very quickly and exploded nearby. Turns out that a "Scud got through" and killed 28 soldiers at the same base these Patriots were fired from. Funny coincidence, especially with the Israeli clamour for the Patriot at that time as a missile shield.
Indeed. You knew that Blair's govt weren't going to do anything world-changing when they did nothing but watch it happen. They could have reversed the decision that was only a few weeks old. But no, we're still paying through the nose for a strategic service.
Surely some sort of renationalisation would be a vote winner? It could even save money for the govt!
It's not too cynical to think the whole bill was timed to proceed through this wash-up period. They knew an election was coming; proper oversight from committees and the Lords would've rightly killed it. The media are all wetting themselves over the forthcoming election and critical oversight is not working.
This sort of poorly-though through stunt was also pulled by the Tories in 1997 when the railways were flogged off- that turned out well.
Sorry to be a little off-topic, but in the UK we're tarred with a constant 'Big Brother' brush and today's news (see next) doesn't help. But pretty sure the idea that an employer could demand access to your FB page, in any way, is simply unthinkable. It wouldn't be countenanced. How the hell did this happen in the US?
I was on the phone to a friend in another city in 1997, just after http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echelon_(signals_intelligence) was revealed. Chatting away, I said to my friend, "Oh, it works by monitoring for a few key words like Dublin, drugs, guns, bombs..." and the line made four loud taps. We sat in silence for a few seconds and considered who would be listening to the tape that was now running.
Absolutely sure that all unencrypted voice and web traffic is regularly, possibly totally, monitored. The GCHQ budget is enormous, they employ bright people (hello spooks!) and our Government has a deep belief that knowledge is power.
At the Rugby World Cup in Wales in 1991, Australia were playing Samoa in a small stadium in some hell-hole in the Valleys. The local brass band duly trotted out 'Advance Australia Fair', but they obviously had trouble with their comms to the South Pacific as the Samoans got "Theme from Hawaii-Five-O"...
Your point is the crux of the debate, yet is not being discussed. They're as likely to use it as NATO/Russia*/Pakistan, etc. So what is this war-mongering and chest-beating all about? The simplest answer is that once a Bomb is acquired, Iran becomes less vulnerable, reducing likelihood of invasion/overt military action. For some, that can't be considered.
The next question is "Why is this reduced vulnerability considered such a seriously bad thing by Israel?", which is what Western commentators should be discussing. Can't be simply all about Middle Eastern hegomonies, but what are the other concerns?
*is it only Russia that have atomic devices or do other former SSRs still have relic weapons? Would Russia have recently knackered Georgia if they had them still?
The boinc move also removed my interest. I was enjoying seeing my results from implementing all that spare capacity; it was quite a bit of work across a number of architectures, and I felt a little proud being part of it.
Then they just started again, in a relatively non-intuitive manner, and what you'd done before didn't count. Lost interest, dedicated the cpu space to Condor and went away.
Slashdot Mirror
Why would they be mentally ill? It's a meta-joke about organised religion, thousands of people chare it and participate in it. It shows that their humanity is leavened with a lovely dose of wit.
For many, even being asked about their religion is seen as an act of oppression. This is their reaction.
I think this partly accounts for the big drop. These people are dying. Your age, occupation and religion were your credentials. My late mother insisted I filled in her online census as a Christian, having never attended a service in my adult life. Even up to her death bed, God, Christ, saints, whoever, were never mentioned, no prayers undertaken, nor was there felt a need for them. But she was happy to be labelled a Christian, as that was her view of what respectable people were.
These generations are vanishing and the new default is agnostic. Brits have always had problems with the overly religious (see Mayflower).
Folklore is an exemplary way of looking at it. Also, the bishops in the Lords are usually left-wing intellectuals, rather than taking the role of conservative demagogues. We therefore don't really care/notice them.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/derbyshire/7245763.stm
Dear AC,
Congratulations, this perfectly describes the current working of the NHS. However, I don't think the parent poster was having his leg pulled, just fundamentally lied to.
I was in the US for a few months during the 'Obamacare' debate of 2009 and the bollocks that was being talked about the NHS was simply amazing, e.g., people over 59 are denied any heart treatment. Our American hosts asked us if this was true!
My brother works for an Indian pharmaceutical company. India don't recognise patents on medicines. The NHS in the UK pays US 40c for his 6 pills from a blister pack of 'generic' heart medicine. He can sell the same 6 to the USA for > US 5$.
You're being screwed as the cost of pills are tiny as compared to the rest of your healthcare. In the UK, as external costs are visible, they are lower. And wait, did someone say "cartel"?
No, this was the best:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/09/daily-chart-13
Love to see their workings out too. Points to massively overpriced cartel running the Indian market (and probably the top 5).
Pretty certain this is the one step to another world that Buzz is glad he didn't make first.
RIP Neil, it was one fantastic journey.
Unlikely though, as even in the US it would be seen as "cruel and unusual punishment".
Car movements and cameras trained at people are very different. By driving a car with numberplates, you automatically have a way for the authorities to recognise you. The automated tracking WILL become an issue, but I'm guessing a little here; nothing public has ever been announced (ssshh, terrorists might be listening). Assume most western countries have something similar or it is planned, even if it's publicly there to reduce the "Police-Action" chases ? Not great, but a long, long way off a viewing-port in every dwelling and 'Enemy of the State' eyes, following our every move.
The Reform Section 5 campaign group will hopefully get their way- the current govt. has to give civil liberties a little boost to calm their right-wingers. This is being actively considered [by government] and it was always a bad clause. However, we're into detail. It's a long, long way from 'no free speech'. See the anti-TSA t-shirt wearing air traveller, just a few stories above, if you want an example closer to home.
Read the small-print after the Myleene Klass affair. She wasn't warned by police. Her agent told the press for a reaction/publicity. It was, hating to repeat myself, total bollocks. Can you find another? Look up Vincent Cooke for a man who killed an intruder in self-defence and take note of the remarks from the judge who last week sentenced the dead man's accomplice.
I think the UK has a long way to go. Many, many important issues are buried within celebrity news nonsense. Our journos and politicos all come from the same, small clique, which has pretty much drawn the wagons around it. However, I've never stuck my head above the political parapet [note to self: an interesting metaphor to choose], so haven't found myself on the end of any ways the state can grind you down- one assumes there are many. For my money, the UK isn't too bad yet and really not the 'Nanny State'. The biggest difference in my adult life is pre- and post-IRA, where many subtle rights have paradoxically disappeared as the authorities are not worrying about 'the terrorists winning' any more.
First of all, none of those links are 'proof'. They are mostly anomalous cases.
1:32 camera ratio includes shops, pubs, clubs; cameras are anywhere where private and public meet. I'm surprised it's not more. I can walk mile-upon-mile of streets in my city with no cameras anywhere. Most street surveillance are concentrated where there's booze and people. There's one hell of a lot of extrapolation in that cited article too.
The 'cult' prosecution didn't last 3 days- see the same page. I read the follow-up article [see link on your cited page] as suggesting the Scientologists had an inside man or two on that one, and as soon as it reached the 'normal' judiciary it was squashed. Also, the City of London has the oddest bye-laws in the country. One swallow doesn't make Britain a sunny country.
Finally, and quite frankly, if Tony Martin is your poster-boy, you have no fucking idea.
Surveillance cameras on every corner. Bollocks.
No freedom of speech. Bollocks.
No right to self defence. Pretty much bollocks.
Encryption keys- you're right. This was part of "Computers are scary" legislation that had too little oversight.
Reduction of freedom from fear of murder counts a lot. No thought that the guy/gal who is being a dick to you will have a gun. Hooray!
8 775 gun murders in USA in 2010 compared with 51 gun murders in UK (popl 1/5 of USA) (12,996 vs 600 total murders). Hooray!
No "Please don't let me get sick as we'll have to sell the house". Hoo-fucking-ray.
We have all main road (and city) car movements tracked in real-time through an enormous increase in ANPR, the lack of discussion of which worries me. Boo!
We're not totally free, but with 60 million+ on these small isles, it's a different ball game.
Oh, and the BBC are pretty much the best broadcasters in the world, and I've tried most of the English language competition and much of the European language channels. Come and find the radio- recommend 6 Music and Radio 4. World Service's good too, if you want some proper news.
Several people I have known have appeared to me in my dreams as they died. One recent apparition was during the day, in an idle moment my thoughts were a tumble of old memories of an old acquaintance as they died of cancer (which I was unaware of). They don't haunt me, and only in one case has there been any interaction; someone I went to school with was stabbed, I was shaking him awake in my dreams, although I was 200 miles away at the time. I told his cousin on the Monday morning, after he asked "Did you hear what happened to Mark?" Mark died on the operating table, but was bought back. There have been several other incidences, but nothing supernatural happened when my father died when I was eight, or my mother in my arms a few weeks back.
These are the most amazing events that have happened in my life. I know that were are more than a bunch cells. However, and it's a big however, I also understand that the most likely explanations are I'm a big, fat liar or it's all just coincidences. It's impossible to refute the first, it's all about that beautiful word, trust. I'm also a scientist and understand the concept of proof and how coincidences work. But we're 30 years on, and still haven't dreamed about Mark again.
I'm missing the logical leap in your response. How does a comment referring to the Ulster Plantations and displacement of the Scots somehow justify your racist remark? Are you suggesting that events of 400 years ago are paramount to modern bigotry?
I really, really, hope that you're not suggesting that the British occupation of Northern Ireland means you can simply label every member of a nationality in a derogatory fashion. That really would be an ignorant and dangerous attitude. Even stupid.
I said it was racist to stereotype Irish people as stupid, which it is.
We all agree. But then you suggested the person making the remark was English. Pot, meet kettle.
Apologies for the acronyms/abbreviations.
There have been several short-falls in capability, there will be many more in the future. Landsat is dead, the follow-on mission is a decade late and produces the same swath width as its illustrious, but 30 year old, predecessors. NPOESS, and its DoD ghost DWSS, are both dead. JPSS doesn't have the same capabilities as those planned on NPOESS or have existed on the DMSP for 25 years or more.
Oceans- Seawifs, the ocean colour satellite from a private company, is dead. Aqua and Terra are getting very old and with ESA's Envisat dead, their MODISs are pretty much the only ocean colour instruments. Where are the US's civilian SARs? Assuming the military have a load, the US haven't launched a civilian one since Seasat in 1978 (it's assumed it saw too much).
Satellites have developed; the early C21st saw an unprecedented increase in environmental monitoring quantity and quality. However, these variables could get very bad, very quickly, through the loss of only a few, already very old, satellites.
I was watching Patriot missiles launches live on the BBC during Gulf War 1. 1,2,3 they went off, but number 3 turned right very quickly and exploded nearby. Turns out that a "Scud got through" and killed 28 soldiers at the same base these Patriots were fired from. Funny coincidence, especially with the Israeli clamour for the Patriot at that time as a missile shield.
Indeed. You knew that Blair's govt weren't going to do anything world-changing when they did nothing but watch it happen. They could have reversed the decision that was only a few weeks old. But no, we're still paying through the nose for a strategic service.
Surely some sort of renationalisation would be a vote winner? It could even save money for the govt!
It's not too cynical to think the whole bill was timed to proceed through this wash-up period. They knew an election was coming; proper oversight from committees and the Lords would've rightly killed it. The media are all wetting themselves over the forthcoming election and critical oversight is not working.
This sort of poorly-though through stunt was also pulled by the Tories in 1997 when the railways were flogged off- that turned out well.
Zimmerman was registered as Hispanic and Democrat
What? You have register your race? For what reason?
Thought the US was a little more advanced than that.
Sorry to be a little off-topic, but in the UK we're tarred with a constant 'Big Brother' brush and today's news (see next) doesn't help. But pretty sure the idea that an employer could demand access to your FB page, in any way, is simply unthinkable. It wouldn't be countenanced. How the hell did this happen in the US?
Agreed with the ongoing practices.
I was on the phone to a friend in another city in 1997, just after http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echelon_(signals_intelligence) was revealed. Chatting away, I said to my friend, "Oh, it works by monitoring for a few key words like Dublin, drugs, guns, bombs..." and the line made four loud taps. We sat in silence for a few seconds and considered who would be listening to the tape that was now running.
Absolutely sure that all unencrypted voice and web traffic is regularly, possibly totally, monitored. The GCHQ budget is enormous, they employ bright people (hello spooks!) and our Government has a deep belief that knowledge is power.
At the Rugby World Cup in Wales in 1991, Australia were playing Samoa in a small stadium in some hell-hole in the Valleys. The local brass band duly trotted out 'Advance Australia Fair', but they obviously had trouble with their comms to the South Pacific as the Samoans got "Theme from Hawaii-Five-O"...
Your point is the crux of the debate, yet is not being discussed. They're as likely to use it as NATO/Russia*/Pakistan, etc. So what is this war-mongering and chest-beating all about? The simplest answer is that once a Bomb is acquired, Iran becomes less vulnerable, reducing likelihood of invasion/overt military action. For some, that can't be considered.
The next question is "Why is this reduced vulnerability considered such a seriously bad thing by Israel?", which is what Western commentators should be discussing. Can't be simply all about Middle Eastern hegomonies, but what are the other concerns?
*is it only Russia that have atomic devices or do other former SSRs still have relic weapons? Would Russia have recently knackered Georgia if they had them still?
The boinc move also removed my interest. I was enjoying seeing my results from implementing all that spare capacity; it was quite a bit of work across a number of architectures, and I felt a little proud being part of it.
Then they just started again, in a relatively non-intuitive manner, and what you'd done before didn't count. Lost interest, dedicated the cpu space to Condor and went away.