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User: Smauler

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Comments · 1,915

  1. Re:Good Luck on France Claims Right To Censor Search Results Globally · · Score: 1

    Britain made a lot of promises during the war, it failed to keep many of them in a timely manner (or at all). One is forced to wonder if they had any intention of upholding the promises in the first place.

    Britain was in massive debt after the war, and in bad shape (sugar rationing ended in 1953, meat rationing ended in 1954, nearly 10 years after the end of the war). It was also coping with colonies left right and centre wanting to declare independence. Essentially, Britain wasn't in much of a position to deal with a lot of promises made during the war.

    We still managed to start the Suez war, though, I guess (and that went really well).

  2. Re:Good Luck on France Claims Right To Censor Search Results Globally · · Score: 1

    I think you're confused. If you've got consumers in a country, and you're selling to them, you've got to abide by local consumer laws. Sorry, that's how it is. It doesn't matter where the company is based.

    Trying to get some tiny shop in Hong Kong to comply with the morass of EU legislation, and whether it's worth going after them if they don't is an entirely different question. But if you're a multinational, and try to sell out of somewhere to the EU without adhering to the regulations, you will get slapped down.

    Now, the trouble is that Google isn't actually charging for anything, which makes it a little less clear. However, they are making profit by people in the EU using their service, though, and so (in my opinion) should obey the laws that apply to those people, and the local companies.

  3. Re:So sorry... on NASA Drops $2.3M On Supersonic Aircraft Research · · Score: 1

    one of the main reasons Concorde became less profitable after that was because a lot of the services clientèle were killed in the 9/11 attacks.

    The 3,000 people killed in 9/11 represent about 0.15% of the populations of New York and London. As comparison. 42,000 people were killed in car accidents in 2001.

  4. Re:You always wondered what dinosaurs taste like . on How Dinosaurs Shrank and Became Birds · · Score: 1

    That's arbitrary. It'd make just as much sense grouping animals by what colour they are. Crocodiles used to be warm blooded, too, so when did they switch from being dinosaurs to reptiles?

  5. Re:4? on Fallout 4 Announced · · Score: 1

    I didn't have a PC when Fallout 1 and 2 were released, I just had a PS1. I know it's nice to be able to afford everything, but most of us couldn't, and made choices.

    JRPGs are awesome, too.

  6. If I ever got free reign in building a house, I'd tessellate the rooms being octagons and squares.

    What, just me?

  7. Re:Question: Fossil Expansion? on How Dinosaurs Shrank and Became Birds · · Score: 4, Interesting

    My general sense is that pretty much old everything is big. But what if fossils expanded with time?

    Not really true. The number of different species that have lived on the earth, it would be astonishing if the largest species to ever have lived had evolved recently... but this is exactly what has happened.

    Also, there are some things (I hesitate to call them species) like the Coelacanth which have stayed very similar in form over hundreds of millions of years.

    Large animals get more press. I'd guess they also fossilise better and are easier to find.

    Regarding large insects and arachnids.... no one is completely certain, apart from the fact that there was a much higher oxygen content in the atmosphere during the Cambrian, allowing larger sizes. This does not explain everything though (but what does?).

  8. Re:You always wondered what dinosaurs taste like . on How Dinosaurs Shrank and Became Birds · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Well, dinosaurs were divided into two main groups, the lizard-hipped and the bird-hipped dinosaurs. Birds evolved from the lizard-hipped dinosaurs, and the bird-hipped dinosaurs died out.

    Reptile is a catch-all term that doesn't really mean anything. Crocodiles are much more closely related to birds and dinosaurs than they are to any other reptiles (so should probably be grouped with birds rather than lizards and snakes), and extinct "reptiles" like dimetrodon are more closely related to humans than they are to any extant reptiles.

  9. Re:Dolby??? What's that. on Microsoft Edge To Support Dolby Audio · · Score: 1

    They did a lot of good research, but you don't do heavy metal in Dobly.

  10. Re:They're missing the point... on How To Die On Mars · · Score: 1

    The difference being that Age of Sail colonists could live in pretty much the same condition as the one they left. On Mars the "colonists" will be living underground and will never again feel fresh air in their lungs or sun on their skin. They will be dependent on the next supply mission or they will die.

    My god, I can't believe you actually posted this on slashdot. I'd guess that 99% of those reading this will be ideally suited for life on Mars after having spent the last few years in mom's basement.

  11. Re: US rail system on Amtrak Installing Cameras To Watch Train Engineers · · Score: 1

    Nascar Race? You mean because they "raise" the flag and sing the National Anthem before the race and usually launch fireworks after it? Nearly every sporting event in the US starts with raising the flag and singing the National Anthem.

    Yeah... that's the thing. Singing the anthem at each and every tiny sporting event looks really odd and jingoistic to most of the rest of the world. We don't do anything like that at our sporting events in England unless they're particularly noteworthy (FA cup final, etc), and even then it's sometimes booed, or mostly ignored.

  12. Re:Reality desensitizes. See enough, you go nuts. on Death In the Browser Tab · · Score: 1

    Crime is going down in just about _all_ western countries. The leaded gasoline correlation does not apply in recent years.

  13. Re:I for one on Death In the Browser Tab · · Score: 1

    Empathy is important.

  14. Re:I for one on Death In the Browser Tab · · Score: 1

    This is similar to the "I don't want to see what I eat slaughtered" argument.

    That it happens often is not a reason to not watch it.

    Not wanting to watch something does not mean that it is not happening.

    And yes, I'm a hypocrite. I really hate killing animals, and wish that I didn't have to.

    Note : that last statement was about our roosters we had to kill. I've not got a compulsion to kill animals.

  15. Re:This isn't a question on Ireland Votes Yes To Same-Sex Marriage · · Score: 1

    It's canon, not cannon.

  16. Re:This isn't a question on Ireland Votes Yes To Same-Sex Marriage · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Until fairly recently in human history, marriage was largely a religious and private issue.

    Until fairly recently in human history, religion was not a private issue. The secular state did not exist (with a few notable exceptions, like the Mongol empire).

  17. Re: This isn't a question on Ireland Votes Yes To Same-Sex Marriage · · Score: 1

    Those laws promoting family units have not worked. At all.

  18. Re: This isn't a question on Ireland Votes Yes To Same-Sex Marriage · · Score: 1

    Let? This seems to be a big misunderstanding amongst humans - the idea that rights are given to us by some higher authority. Nuh-uh, existence grants our rights. The best our entitled humans may do is refrain from removing them by threat of force. Have a nice day =D

    The right to marry has lots of legal implications which are controlled by the state, and marriage is controlled by the state, and has been for millennia. If you think it's not, you're deluded. Common law marriage does not really exist, legally.

    Now, should it be controlled by the state and have lots of legal implications? That's a different question. I personally don't think it should, but trying to remove marriage from the legislature would be quite difficult.

    The point is that for quite a while now homosexuals have had the right to live as couples, but they've not been allowed to be recognised under the law that gives tax breaks and other things to married couples. I'd personally do away with these tax breaks and make marriage a purely personal thing, not something legal (but as I said before, this will be difficult).

    Until that time, I'm perfectly happy with homosexuals marrying on the same basis heterosexuals do.

  19. Not the best solution on Amazon's Delivery Drones Will Be Able To Track Your Location · · Score: 1

    Having something delivered to where you are is often the least useful place for it to be. If you cycle to work, you don't want your car exhaust to be delivered there. Ideally, you'd probably want it to be delivered to the garage you're going to get it fitted at.

    Some people also don't like some stuff being delivered at work.

  20. Re:Local recycling is dependent on a local market on Africa E-Waste Dump Continues Hyperbole War · · Score: 1

    But transporting it is expensive, so much so that it can be cheaper to produce new glass from sand.

    Producing glass from sand isn't much more difficult than producing glass from glass. That's the main reason glass recycling isn't that useful.

    Aluminium is much easier to produce from aluminium than from bauxite.

  21. Re:Will you marrie me? on Astronaut Snaps Epic Star Trek Selfie In Space · · Score: 1

    Well.... perhaps some men can just admire what she's achieved rather than think about having sex with her.

    I'm not going to degrade this reply with what I just thought about.

  22. Re:Star Trek Hating Women in Command Roles on Astronaut Snaps Epic Star Trek Selfie In Space · · Score: 1

    I wonder when it'll become acceptable for male captains to wear skirts.

  23. Re:Good for her! on Astronaut Snaps Epic Star Trek Selfie In Space · · Score: 1

    The Borg's adaptability always sucked. The entire notion that once you understand something you can counteract and adapt to it is bogus.

    We've had big lumps of metal fired by explosives for over 500 years, and even now, after half a millennium of amazing technological advancement, if you're in the way of a big lump of metal fired by an explosive the only thing that is going to save you is a bigger lump of metal between you and it.

    Getting better big lumps of metal to fire first and stopping the enemy from firing big lumps of metal at you in the first place is the only real countermeasure.

    All that being said, I agree with you about the Borg queen and the Borg ideal.

  24. Re:Help me out here a little... on Utilities Battle Homeowners Over Solar Power · · Score: 1

    Germany's wind turbines ran into this problem when it was warm and windy all over Europe for a couple of weeks a couple of winters back. They ended up paying other companies to take their produced energy; that was obviously deemed cheaper than just turning them all off and starting them again.

    I'd guess that solar's easier to turn off though, at least on a small scale - you just cover it up.

  25. Re: They're called trees. on Breakthrough In Artificial Photosynthesis Captures CO2 In Acetate · · Score: 1

    drinkypoo, be honest. It essentially all gets released back in mature forests. Do you think that which doesn't goes somewhere magical?

    There isn't new coal being created by trees at the moment, that we've seen, at any significant rate.