My parents' method of protecting me from seeing something bad on television was to record EVERYTHING on VHS and then watch it first. Only after watching each program could they decide if it was safe for me to watch. This system had the advantage that I was never exposed to anything that my parents thought inappropriate for someone of my age. Of course, I still bear the emotional scars from the complete and total abandonment of my parents because they spent my entire childhood watching tv!
But isn't there a risk of going blind from this sort of thing? My understanding is that when exposed to microwaves the first really "bad" thing to happen is that you go blind because there is limited blood supply to the cornea. Whilst other parts of the body can hold out longer because the blood transfers the heat away from the exposed area, the corneas get cooked. And everyone knows that corneas taste better when cooked in the oven, not in the microwave!
If you cloned yourself, you wouldn't be able to kill yourself because you would both be exactly matched. You'd have to get a friend to maim your clone for you, but of course your clone would be asking your friend the same thing at the same time...the only way to do it would be to set up a trap so as soon as the clone comes out he/she is killed (a la that episode of Itchy and Scratchy).
That's interesting...I don't know how it works for trains, but in Melbourne, Australia we also have a pretty big tram network. The trams here will not derail in that situation - the action of the trams wheels going through the switch is enough to make the switch change. There are two other ways that switches can be changed - some automatic process that I'm not familiar with, or a tram driver can climb out and use a special metal rod as a key to manually change the switch. Because you cannot derail the trams by changing the switches, the worst that you could do would be to put the tram off-course. I'm guessing that train switches are much more heavy duty and would not respond in the same manner.
There used to be a trick with some payphones in Australia whereby you could make free calls. When you put the coins in they were temporarily held in a device inside the phone (which also registered the value of each coin). After you connected with another phone the coins would be dropped into the safe at the bottom. When you hit the coin return button, a hinge in the device would open and the coins would drop into the coin return slot (and triggered a switch that told the phone that there was no more credit remaining). The coin return slot was protected by a kind of metal flap. When you poked your fingers into the little bay that the coins were returned to, you would have to push the metal flap inwards and it would subsequently block the other entrance to the coin return bay (ie the entrance by which the coins entered the bay). Now if you took a plastic drinking straw and flattened it, you could poke it into the gap between the top of the coin return bay flap and the phone itself, and then push open the hinge for the temporary coin holder, thus allowing the coins to fall into the return slot, but more importantly not triggering the switch that told the phone that the coins were gone. Once you had done that, you could make free phone calls. Not that I ever did this of course:-P
I too use aliases extensively. Googling my real name returns over 20,000 results, and I looked through the first hundred and saw no mention of the real me whatsoever. You can all go to hell, I hate being bossed around and I have problems dealing with authority and I like to drink and do drugs during work hours. I am also severely paranoid and respond to perceived threats with extreme violence. And I wear a beret. See, I can say all of that, and no future boss can turn me down because of it:-)
Maybe this is the problem....why must we fight on the basis of something so arbitrary as nationality? If us terrorists and you infidels could all just learn to work together and live and love in harmony, just think of the destruction we could cause! Entire cities, hundreds of thousands of infidels could be destroyed! Instead we have to let our petty bickering get in the way of our true goals. What a crazy world we live in.
Well, as a terrorist, I am completely appalled. It used to be that if I wanted pilfer a plane and knock over a building or two I could just mosey on in and do it. Now look at the trouble I have to go through! I tell you now, if you USAsians don't change your policies I am going to seriously consider taking my business elsewhere. In fact, if the US didn't have a monopoly on the world market of infidels, you would've lost my business long ago. But that's capitalism for you, it only hurts the little guy. By the way, whatever happened to equal opportunity? What happened to giving everyone a fair go? At the end of the day, terrorists are just people too, and isn't it in your constitution that everyone has certain inalienable rights?
If they were really smart, they would make it so that the shaking action help recharge the batteries, a la those kinetically recharged watches that one sees occasionally. Whilst the charge generated by shaking wouldn't be all that much, surely even a little bit is better than nothing?
I think that every time the government takes some of the peoples' rights away, a specially designated group should have the task of killing several hundred children. Then the general public will be outraged that children are actually dying because rights are being taken away, instead of being outraged at the vague possibility that some child may die somewhere and thus allowing rights to be taken away. Of course, this plan will only work until the government takes away the right to kill children...
In Australia, 911 is a valid prefix to an ordinary phone number (eg 9115 7199 - call it, I dare you), so there is no feasible way that 911 could be routed to the emergency number (which is 000 here).
Yeah, but what about a cannon and a slingshot working together? A multi-stage approach: the slingshot fires the cannon into the sky, and when the cannon reaches maximum height it fires and sends the payload hurtling into space. I hear that NASA may be signing an exclusive partnership with ACME to develop this...
Where I used to work we had to send some very politically sensitive data from Melbourne to Brisbane. I zipped it up in Winzip, came up with a very strong password, and then put it on a CD and sent it by registered post. Boy did I have trouble trying to explain what the password was though! The recipient was not computer literate, and was an upper management type so I didn't get to speak to him directly. Instead I had to communicate through my manager (who also wasn't very computer literate). In the end the password had to be sent by email, which as we all know is not the most secure communications medium.
Whilst this was probably a fairly secure method (the password wasn't sent until the package had been received and verified), I guess the moral to the story is that no matter how strong you want the password to be, you still have to make sure that you will be able to explain it to the PHB at the other end!
I hate leaving messages on answering machines. I always have to call twice, the first to find out that I have to leave a message, then I mentally script what I want to say, then I call back and leave a message. Or I'll send an email isntead.
Some people develop their thoughts internally and don't speak until the though is fully formed. I, on the other hand, am one of those people that thinks as I speak, so what I am saying initially may not necessarily be my final conclusion. Without this externalisation proces, I find it very hard to fully develop my thoughts. When talking to people I can get away with it, because I can easily clarify myself and nobody thinks any worse of me for it. On an answering machine that isn't possible, because all of the early detritus is recorded. This sort of recording makes me sound like a dingbat, and I don't much like sounding like a dingbat. Therefore I hate answering machines (I rather hypocritically like having one on my phone though).
In Australia, to dial 911 you have to call 000, and on every phone that I've seen, you can still type 000 even with the key lock on. This has resulted in numerous useless calls to the poor emergency operators. I tell you, clamshell phones are the only way to go, as long as you can put up with the smell of old clams.
My grandfather is nearly 90 and still has a great sense of humour. Whenever telemarketers call him, he mumbles a bunch of unintelligable nonsense into the phone in his best "old man" voice until they hang up. I guess it's probably funnier to listen to than to read about...
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My parents' method of protecting me from seeing something bad on television was to record EVERYTHING on VHS and then watch it first. Only after watching each program could they decide if it was safe for me to watch. This system had the advantage that I was never exposed to anything that my parents thought inappropriate for someone of my age. Of course, I still bear the emotional scars from the complete and total abandonment of my parents because they spent my entire childhood watching tv!
But isn't there a risk of going blind from this sort of thing? My understanding is that when exposed to microwaves the first really "bad" thing to happen is that you go blind because there is limited blood supply to the cornea. Whilst other parts of the body can hold out longer because the blood transfers the heat away from the exposed area, the corneas get cooked. And everyone knows that corneas taste better when cooked in the oven, not in the microwave!
How droll, the captcha was "screams".
If you cloned yourself, you wouldn't be able to kill yourself because you would both be exactly matched. You'd have to get a friend to maim your clone for you, but of course your clone would be asking your friend the same thing at the same time...the only way to do it would be to set up a trap so as soon as the clone comes out he/she is killed (a la that episode of Itchy and Scratchy).
That's interesting...I don't know how it works for trains, but in Melbourne, Australia we also have a pretty big tram network. The trams here will not derail in that situation - the action of the trams wheels going through the switch is enough to make the switch change. There are two other ways that switches can be changed - some automatic process that I'm not familiar with, or a tram driver can climb out and use a special metal rod as a key to manually change the switch. Because you cannot derail the trams by changing the switches, the worst that you could do would be to put the tram off-course. I'm guessing that train switches are much more heavy duty and would not respond in the same manner.
There used to be a trick with some payphones in Australia whereby you could make free calls. When you put the coins in they were temporarily held in a device inside the phone (which also registered the value of each coin). After you connected with another phone the coins would be dropped into the safe at the bottom. When you hit the coin return button, a hinge in the device would open and the coins would drop into the coin return slot (and triggered a switch that told the phone that there was no more credit remaining). The coin return slot was protected by a kind of metal flap. When you poked your fingers into the little bay that the coins were returned to, you would have to push the metal flap inwards and it would subsequently block the other entrance to the coin return bay (ie the entrance by which the coins entered the bay). Now if you took a plastic drinking straw and flattened it, you could poke it into the gap between the top of the coin return bay flap and the phone itself, and then push open the hinge for the temporary coin holder, thus allowing the coins to fall into the return slot, but more importantly not triggering the switch that told the phone that the coins were gone. Once you had done that, you could make free phone calls. Not that I ever did this of course :-P
I too use aliases extensively. Googling my real name returns over 20,000 results, and I looked through the first hundred and saw no mention of the real me whatsoever. You can all go to hell, I hate being bossed around and I have problems dealing with authority and I like to drink and do drugs during work hours. I am also severely paranoid and respond to perceived threats with extreme violence. And I wear a beret. See, I can say all of that, and no future boss can turn me down because of it :-)
Regards,
Bob Doyle^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H
The first one was very funny. For some reason in the sequels replaced all of the jokes with exaggerated body functions and 1/4 entendres.
Or any animal that can't distinguish between rocks and bears (if you don't like google video you can download the 24mb quicktime version or the 7mb mp4 version)
I thought the meek were supposed to inherit the earth...and women long ago forgot how to be meek!
The wonderful ukulele website, www.4thpeg.com, also starts with a digit.
How funny, the captcha is "registry"
Maybe this is the problem....why must we fight on the basis of something so arbitrary as nationality? If us terrorists and you infidels could all just learn to work together and live and love in harmony, just think of the destruction we could cause! Entire cities, hundreds of thousands of infidels could be destroyed! Instead we have to let our petty bickering get in the way of our true goals. What a crazy world we live in.
Well, as a terrorist, I am completely appalled. It used to be that if I wanted pilfer a plane and knock over a building or two I could just mosey on in and do it. Now look at the trouble I have to go through! I tell you now, if you USAsians don't change your policies I am going to seriously consider taking my business elsewhere. In fact, if the US didn't have a monopoly on the world market of infidels, you would've lost my business long ago. But that's capitalism for you, it only hurts the little guy. By the way, whatever happened to equal opportunity? What happened to giving everyone a fair go? At the end of the day, terrorists are just people too, and isn't it in your constitution that everyone has certain inalienable rights?
If they were really smart, they would make it so that the shaking action help recharge the batteries, a la those kinetically recharged watches that one sees occasionally. Whilst the charge generated by shaking wouldn't be all that much, surely even a little bit is better than nothing?
I think that every time the government takes some of the peoples' rights away, a specially designated group should have the task of killing several hundred children. Then the general public will be outraged that children are actually dying because rights are being taken away, instead of being outraged at the vague possibility that some child may die somewhere and thus allowing rights to be taken away. Of course, this plan will only work until the government takes away the right to kill children...
In Australia, 911 is a valid prefix to an ordinary phone number (eg 9115 7199 - call it, I dare you), so there is no feasible way that 911 could be routed to the emergency number (which is 000 here).
Yeah, but what about a cannon and a slingshot working together? A multi-stage approach: the slingshot fires the cannon into the sky, and when the cannon reaches maximum height it fires and sends the payload hurtling into space. I hear that NASA may be signing an exclusive partnership with ACME to develop this...
Where I used to work we had to send some very politically sensitive data from Melbourne to Brisbane. I zipped it up in Winzip, came up with a very strong password, and then put it on a CD and sent it by registered post. Boy did I have trouble trying to explain what the password was though! The recipient was not computer literate, and was an upper management type so I didn't get to speak to him directly. Instead I had to communicate through my manager (who also wasn't very computer literate). In the end the password had to be sent by email, which as we all know is not the most secure communications medium.
Whilst this was probably a fairly secure method (the password wasn't sent until the package had been received and verified), I guess the moral to the story is that no matter how strong you want the password to be, you still have to make sure that you will be able to explain it to the PHB at the other end!
I came up with a theory of everything, but it predicted that it was wrong, and it was right, and now my head hurts.
If you live in Victoria, Australia, your rights with respect to dealing with police are outlined here (pdf warning)
I hate leaving messages on answering machines. I always have to call twice, the first to find out that I have to leave a message, then I mentally script what I want to say, then I call back and leave a message. Or I'll send an email isntead.
Some people develop their thoughts internally and don't speak until the though is fully formed. I, on the other hand, am one of those people that thinks as I speak, so what I am saying initially may not necessarily be my final conclusion. Without this externalisation proces, I find it very hard to fully develop my thoughts. When talking to people I can get away with it, because I can easily clarify myself and nobody thinks any worse of me for it. On an answering machine that isn't possible, because all of the early detritus is recorded. This sort of recording makes me sound like a dingbat, and I don't much like sounding like a dingbat. Therefore I hate answering machines (I rather hypocritically like having one on my phone though).
In Australia, to dial 911 you have to call 000, and on every phone that I've seen, you can still type 000 even with the key lock on. This has resulted in numerous useless calls to the poor emergency operators. I tell you, clamshell phones are the only way to go, as long as you can put up with the smell of old clams.
My grandfather is nearly 90 and still has a great sense of humour. Whenever telemarketers call him, he mumbles a bunch of unintelligable nonsense into the phone in his best "old man" voice until they hang up. I guess it's probably funnier to listen to than to read about...