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User: Maelwryth

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Comments · 524

  1. Re:Smoking crater on Possible Meteorite Leaves a Crater In Latvia · · Score: 1

    The chances of that happening are a million to one!

  2. Re:why 520 days?! on Volunteers Wanted For Simulated 520-Day Mars Trip · · Score: 1

    Pandora's Star, first chapter.

  3. Re:Haha.. no on AU Government To Build "Unhackable" Netbooks · · Score: 2, Insightful

    "Really, the true protection the laptop gets is that every student receives one for free, but a replacement laptop has to be paid for out of their parent's pockets. Students will learn to be careful with them or face punishment from their parents."
     
    A couple of thoughts on that. The first is that my daughter went through six cellphones one year (not paid for by me). Children have no idea how much things cost because generally they don't have to work for them. The second is that the loss of your laptop (which eventually will be part of school curriculum, if it isn't already) will penalise low income families with no technical knowledge who now have to fork out for a replacement. The third is.....what a way to bully kids! Just smash their laptop and refuse to admit you did it.

  4. Twas Mulga Bill....... on New Zealander Invents Segway Alternative · · Score: 1

    'Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that caught the cycling craze;
    He turned away the good old horse that served him many days;
    He dressed himself in cycling clothes, resplendent to be seen;
    He hurried off to town and bought a shining new machine;
    And as he wheeled it through the door, with air of lordly pride,
    The grinning shop assistant said, "Excuse me, can you ride?"

    "See here, young man," said Mulga Bill, "from Walgett to the sea,
    From Conroy's Gap to Castlereagh, there's none can ride like me.
    I'm good all round at everything as everybody knows,
    Although I'm not the one to talk - I hate a man that blows.
    But riding is my special gift, my chiefest, sole delight;
    Just ask a wild duck can it swim, a wildcat can it fight.
    There's nothing clothed in hair or hide, or built of flesh or steel,
    There's nothing walks or jumps, or runs, on axle, hoof, or wheel,
    But what I'll sit, while hide will hold and girths and straps are tight:
    I'll ride this here two-wheeled concern right straight away at sight."

    'Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that sought his own abode,
    That perched above Dead Man's Creek, beside the mountain road.
    He turned the cycle down the hill and mounted for the fray,
    But 'ere he'd gone a dozen yards it bolted clean away.
    It left the track, and through the trees, just like a silver steak,
    It whistled down the awful slope towards the Dead Man's Creek.

    It shaved a stump by half an inch, it dodged a big white-box:
    The very wallaroos in fright went scrambling up the rocks,
    The wombats hiding in their caves dug deeper underground,
    As Mulga Bill, as white as chalk, sat tight to every bound.
    It struck a stone and gave a spring that cleared a fallen tree,
    It raced beside a precipice as close as close could be;
    And then as Mulga Bill let out one last despairing shriek
    It made a leap of twenty feet into the Dean Man's Creek.

    'Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that slowly swam ashore:
    He said, "I've had some narrer shaves and lively rides before;
    I've rode a wild bull round a yard to win a five-pound bet,
    But this was the most awful ride that I've encountered yet.
    I'll give that two-wheeled outlaw best; it's shaken all my nerve
    To feel it whistle through the air and plunge and buck and swerve.
    It's safe at rest in Dead Man's Creek, we'll leave it lying still;
    A horse's back is good enough henceforth for Mulga Bill."

    Banjo Paterson

  5. Re:How about free secure wireless? on WPA Encryption Cracked In 60 Seconds · · Score: 1

    Ahhhhhh, yes. And I suppose you think tying two 14 year olds together doesn't make them a 28 year old with two teenage pussies as well?

  6. Re:Know your market. on Microsoft Poland Photoshops Black Guy To White One · · Score: 1

    "Can anybody here identify with any of the people on that Microsoft photo?"
    Michael Jackson?

  7. Re:Great !!! on Laser Treatment Could Save the Sight of Millions · · Score: 1

    "Now I can go blind again..... if I don't stop doing "that"!"
     
    I thought the problem was if you kept doing "that".

  8. Re:Planck telescope on Planck Telescope Is Coolest Spacecraft Ever · · Score: 1

    And we can call the first repair job, "Walking the Plank".

  9. What a f**king dick on Galactic Origin For 62M-Year Extinction Cycle? · · Score: -1, Troll

    Those gas clouds are probably circulating at the same speed as us. Net speed zero. NTICBBRTFA (not that I can be bothered reading the f**king article). I mean, for Christ sakes. Couldn't it be that they had found 62 million years is the average time it takes a super duper virus to mutate. No, we have to be flying into some fucking cloud that just happens to be traveling at a speed in opposition to the rest of the galaxy.....in a few million years........I may have had a few glasses of wine tonight but there is no way I am going to fall for that.

    What an f**king twit!

  10. Re:Aaah... the lucky, lucky, people... on One Fifth of World's Population Can't See Milky Way At Night · · Score: 1

    Hmmmmmmmmmmm, I would like to subscribe to your news letter. :)
     
    I live on an island and have recently been trapped by our creek flooding. We too get a couple of service providers. A situation that never ceases to amaze me. We don't get the brutal winters but seeing as we are a whole lot further from the malls, that seems to be a decent tradeoff. The only problem I have with seeing the milky way is the moon and the clouds. Neither of which I appear to be able to do anything about though.

  11. Re:Broken Record on North Korea Conducts Nuclear Test · · Score: 1

    Democracy bug. But where do we file a bug report?

  12. Re:Apropos alien life on Mars Robot May Destroy Life It Was Sent To Find · · Score: 1

    You're right, it is a must read. I thank you.

  13. Re:The War on (some) Drugs on Cocaine Test Prompts Red Bull Removal In Germany · · Score: 1

    Wolfram|Alpha isn't sure what to do with your input. Tips for good results

    Related inputs to try:

    Chemistry: information about a chemical cocaine Units: currency conversions $30000 Colors: information about a color Red

  14. Re:small on Shuttle and Hubble Passing In Front of the Sun · · Score: 3, Funny

    "All boobs are perky in 0g."
    Yes. But, some are longer than others. :)

  15. Re:Possible NZ Contribution on An Australian Space Agency At Last? · · Score: 2, Interesting

    "Notice how he had to leave New Zealand to accomplish that."
    More telling would have been saying how he never came back. :)

    New Zealand is a very small, very young, country. Many of our best and brightest go overseas. Possibly the experience is part of what makes them our best and brightest. Furthermore, getting funding for large projects just isn't going to happen in a country of just over four million people. I think you would find that we aren't so unhappy that we lost them, we're just happy that they achieved an important role in the world.

  16. Re:Been using it for about an hour... on Wolfram Alpha Launches Tonight, On Camera · · Score: 1

    Interesting results. After searching the radius of the earth ("What is the radius of the earth?") on both Google and Alpha I gain different results. 6 378.1 kilometers for Google, and 6367.5 kilometers on Alpha..........They are obviously on different parts of the planet :). I must say that I would have preferred it if Alpha had asked me where I was. That would have been intelligent.

  17. Re:New World Record on An Australian Space Agency At Last? · · Score: 1

    Poster was probably referring to the scrapping of our Skyhawk fleet. That leaves us with bugger all. Not that it matters, we would be better off specialising in support of our allies than trying to fund a full blown armed forces.

  18. Re:Possible NZ Contribution on An Australian Space Agency At Last? · · Score: 1

    It went a little further than that;
      President of Caltech University, Thomas Everhart said of him, "More than any other individual, Bill Pickering was responsible for America's success in exploring the planets an endeavour that demanded vision, courage, dedication, expertise and the ability to inspire two generations of scientists and engineers".
    There was a good biography for him donated to almost every NZ library by IPENZ last year called William H. Pickering: America's Deep Space Pioneer: America's Deep Space Pioneer.

  19. Re:But... on Warrantless GPS Tracking Is Legal, Says WI Court · · Score: 1

    Sort of halfway joking. You might have to freeze the goose to get it to break an arm if you shot it out of a cannon. Personally, the last time I had anything to do with a goose was when it attacked a child in my care (maelwryth 1/goose 0). Bloody scary bastards though :)

  20. Re:But... on Warrantless GPS Tracking Is Legal, Says WI Court · · Score: 1

    "How's that supposed to work? Do you understand the concepts of mass, velocity, and energy?"

    Be nice. You think a 20 pound goose can't break your arm? Do you think I could break your arm with twenty ounces of steel?

  21. Re:But... on Warrantless GPS Tracking Is Legal, Says WI Court · · Score: 1
    "Police don't need a warrant to follow a car, and in my opinion, GPS tracking is more akin to tailing a car than searching through it."

    Really? I would call it persecution. Imagine every time you pulled out of your home a police car tailed you to work. Now imagine they tried to do it in unmarked cars. Wondering what you have done wrong, who is out to get you? Are your children safe? Perhaps your wife did something she hasn't told you about? Is that clerk looking at you strangely? Feeling paranoid yet?

    The truth is humans are naturally suspicious. It is probably part of pattern recognition. We are also emotional creatures. We suppress a great many thoughts every day just to stay socially acceptable (Wow, she smiled at me/She fuck'n ignored me). Actions like these will push many people closer to the fringe of society. Not a place we want more people in

  22. Re:Just Suppose on Law of Armed Conflict To Apply To Cyberwar · · Score: 1

    Just suppose that air traffic control and the power Grid weren't connected to the Internet in the first place. In one way this is the same reasoning as, 'woman shouldn't wear provocative clothing because they get raped'. In another way it's the reason you don't get insurance without house locks.
    To make a blunt analogy: Having your power grid taken down by a foreign hacker is on the same level as walking through Pyongyang with a tshirt saying,

    Fuck Kim Jong-il
    America rulz
    Fuck yeah!

    If you put infrastructure like that on the Internet you deserve it, and you are just as responsible for it as the person who takes advantage of it.

  23. Re:Only thing that's for sure is that... on Ray Kurzweil's Vision of the Singularity, In Movie Form · · Score: 1

    Just as likely we build the first A.I.. It accelerates it's own growth, decides that Astrology is a damn good idea, then that it is the reincarnation of Budda, and finally, that it is God before wiping us out in a temper tantrum and then recreating something with a set of genetic based emergent concepts leading to it's own recreation (including the bugfix :)). And then committing suicide.

  24. Re:Goddammit ! on Al-Qaeda Used Basic Codes, Calling Cards, Hotmail · · Score: 1

    Point taken. All I can say was that it seemed funny at the time. Not so much about two seconds afterwards, but at the time. ?HSOOW might have been better, but then all the other 9998 monkeys hid their face's in their hands and I got the point.

  25. Re:Misleading or Deceptive Conduct on Merck Created Phony Peer-Review Medical Journal · · Score: 4, Informative

    The Australasian Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery might not be very happy about this as well. Especially as their slogan is, "Excellence through peer review". :)