Posts by Scott Broukell 968 publicly visible posts • joined 20 Sep 2007
.... and not a single person notices it.
Within minutes several billion, squillion other neutrinos go into the same pub.
Once again nobody notices a thing.
Then one neutrino lepton to the bar and did a little jig, which may or may not have caught the attention of at least one person in the bar.
I blame it all on the amount of tau-killer slammers.
<did i post this twice?>
Need I say more. Well all right then - it's those little moments, or a pretty big one for the individual concerned in this case, that make the world of difference to just one customer. One in millions, but that matters and should matter to all of us. I'm surprised that Apple didn't take the same approach as Nokia - it is just a little thing and then again so is a customer.
... admit it, this attitude is common place.
We are living in a hyper-connected digital age, what could possibly go wrong!
My guess is that maybe as many as 2% of the worlds population actually consider a thorough wipe or physical destruction of data / disks in such / any cases.
It's an added cost, who wants it any way - WAKE UP YOU NUMPTIES !
Give me some goggles, a mask, some masonry nails and a large hammer and I'll do it for you for c. £8.00 per hour.
I had a huge database once, with almost everyones details on it - then I went and left it on a bus.
Kind of funny the way these databases are moved around by buses, or high speed underground links or even slower, common rail links. I wonder what will become of this instance.
Still, my details are safe - I've triple-shredded all the details of who I am and every scrap of evidence that I ever existed - so there, mega-politico-corps, I ... I ... nurse !, are you a nurse ? ..... is this what you call living in a machine ? ... ahhhg!
This lax attitude has been going on since computers and suchlike got into the common workplace. In the late 80's I was asked by a colleague to purchase a redundant AT machine for him, and set it up with DOS and some apps so he could use it as a word processor. The IT bod assured me that the disk had been scrubbed, or at the very least formatted. Well as we know formatting isn't enough and that's all that had been done. I poked the disk contents with Peeka (iirc) which allowed me to see raw data in clusters on the disk. Sure enough this revealed sensitive legal and financial information, which, if I had wanted to, I could have easily recovered and spliced back into workable files. It taught me a lesson in wiping disks clean. But I was shocked that an amateur with an interest in computers such as myself could retrieve the data quite so easily.
Our throw-away, modern age of consumerism has some bearing I'm sure but IT peeps really should have all this covered. A logged and certificated system with names on it should accompany each individual part, even if the chances of it holding sensitive data are minimal. The cost of carrying this out, compared to the unrealized costs of the data falling into the wrong hands should be a no-brainer. Heads must roll.
... that Muslims, Christians and Jews can't tolerate atheists let alone each other ?
"Live and let live" ... mmmm ... that happens so much throughout history between believers of differing made-up piffle.
Not believing in no god frees up your mind to the reality of the human condition.
Believing in a god buries your head in the communal ancient sand pit.
I don't wish to deny anybody the right to believe, I just want them to understand that it's not that important what they believe in, either to non-believers or believers in other faiths and as such they should be content not to ram it down the throats of every body else regardless. I would rather live in a completely secular society which tolerates different faiths but gives their followers no greater sway than say people with freckles or green eyes.
If that's intolerable to you then you are living in the middle ages, sorry.
Spot on.
May I add that, imho, that it's all very symptomatic of the market-driven, 21st century capitalist model currently driving us into greater and greater misery and depravity. We need, desperately, to re-shape our model of consumption - globally. The continued exponential growth that traders and investors clamor for is akin to weeds ravishing a beautiful, and sustainable, wild-flower meadow.
Whilst I accept that money is the blood that flows through the veins of an economy to keep the machinery turning - continually pumping up the speed and pressure on that blood flow will inevitably lead to ill health and a short term life expectancy.
Whilst traders desperately sell each other pieces of our/their debts on made-up magical bits of e-paper, many are turning to such (anti) social networking systems to bleed / leech more out of the beautiful flowers, already turning their fine petaled heads downwards away from the blue sky and sunshine, until they wither, transfixed upon the bare, scorched earth and collapse in a heap.
The only glimmer of hope is that composting is a splendid and sustainable way by which this matter can be recycled so that flower meadows can spring up anew.
(maybe I'm suffering Seasonally Affected Disorder early this year - cheers petals ;-))
.. it was lack of government, or other, funding that shelved both major projects. Had funding and foresight been in abundance at the time, the machines could have, amongst other things of course, calculated highly accurate ranging tables for the navy etc and we would have really, really have been ruling the waves then.
Nice try, and one that I had at first thought would work, but, sadly these can be keylogged from the buffer and hence are not so secure. There are papers by e.g. Jonathan Brossard which demonstrate this.
IIRC many older Mainboards used to have a setting for a more complete block on bios rom write access.
.... all this Stuff from the home (hideout), of a man who, reportedly, spent years being totally paranoid about anybody coming within ten miles of him with an active cell phone / laptop, or even one that was still "warm". I guess he must have been getting old and crotchety allowing this mountain of techno-junk to fill up his lair.
Did they find his tin-foil hat I wonder ?
... will folk understand that doing anything via the internet is basically doing it in public! Especially so if you volunteer as "product" in the market for profiling i.e. Face Book etc. The marketeers, and others aside, are grabbing every bit of vaguely useful data on our activities because they want to sell more and more sh*t to us and do it cheaply in comparison to traditional advertising etc.
It's tantamount to doing your business in public, in the High Street, on a *Sepp Blatter with a freekin megaphone. (*special thanks to Hugh Dennis).
Get orf it now, do you hear!, get the pen and paper out !
The "NET" is an evil place!
>IF RANT OVER goto $var "Have A little lie down"
... I share the sentiments expressed by Super Tim (top), I can't help thinking that a few months hard graft doing some worthy community service would have been a more constructive approach.
Also, in relation to this recent thuggery, I find myself frequently thinking that it is also possible to gather a large, coordinated, crowd of "yoof" together and have them, willingly, do something good. But then such activity would hardly make the headlines I suppose.
There are many, many, more kind, considerate and positive young people in our society, from all backgrounds, whom we should be making more of a noise about methinks. Let them come forth and be counted, and showered with techno-bling in reward for services given to their communities. Then see if the thuggish crowd wains somewhat.
Apply the positive spin to this, rather than focusing on and giving "air-time" to the pond-life that want their rule. Just a thought.
.. to report one Mr. F. Goodwin Esq. who, it appears, has got himself all blinged-up nicely thank you, after completely trashing the once very good name of a certain banking establishment, and, further to that, it would appear, that his blinged-upedness has been payed for by the proceeds of the good tax paying public who remain lumbered financially with the net results of his despotic greed and avarice the like of which should never, ever, have been allowed near any UK, Scottish, British banking establishment in the first place.
>IF RANT OVER
GOTO $var "Curtain twitching"
... NO CHILD BENEFIT / BENEFIT for ANYONE after the second child. (triplets / quadruplets at first birth excluded etc)
Yes, I know what you're all going to say, that's a tax on the poor procreating and the rich, who can normally better afford to bring their children up by their own means, will continue to do so. But, many better off peeps decide early that they will plan to only replace themselves. Many, many, more poorer folk decide wtf, we get hand outs for 'em so let's plan to keep at it as well. Of course this may not legislate against men fathering children by numerous mothers - unless fathers name / details are required to claim said benefit(s) of course.
No, I don't read the Daily Mail.
I just think that those kids whose destiny is to be brought up in relative poverty would be better off if there were fewer of them - they would be more to go round for each of them and who knows that might improve their chances of improving their own lot as it were.
Help them improve their surroundings by spending the same funds on teaching the youngsters the skills needed to improve where they live and you may see more pride and less prejudice.
.... hows about these "hackers" et al snitch the data sets etc etc to highlight a vulnerability in said websites, then promise not to divulge it unless and until said websites vulnerabilities have been fixed PRONTO. They could even offer to assist in that regard. Then some verifiable and trusted testing body could run attack vectors, whatever, to determine that the fix was good and the data could go back whence it came, all tidy like. Of course, the body responsible for hosting /constructing the web presence where said data was held would have to foot the bill for all this, as a lesson to all other peeps that wish to retain our / your data in such a manner.
Would that just not be exciting enough ?, although possibly more efficient and conducive to the common good.
* (the above does not, nor is it intended to, cover examples of data sets held illegally / dishonestly for nefarious purposes by guberment authorities with things to hide from those that democratically elect them etc etc.)
So my post dissed science did it - no. How do you think we might "investigate" the earth without it. I am merely suggesting that we might be better off applying our minds to our continuation on this planet (*for the mean time), by comprehensively making sustainable use of it's resources etc. (yes, with science) as opposed to sending expensive missions out to look at nearby lumps etc. It's a long term approach you see. One where we use our nouse to establish a firm base here on earth before we (* inevitably - if we are around long enough) have to make a leap into considering adopting a new out-post for our furtherance. We can do plenty of space-science from down here on earth and as we progress in that area we will be able to gather all the data we need towards future developments. It's a kind of "look before you leap" argument. We will be required to make huge changes in our attitudes towards each other - social changes towards religion, population and politics etc. But I would rather we go beyond our, as yet, limited reach when we have sorted all that out, understood how to get along together and are in a fit condition to venture into the management of another habitable rock to make our own. The monies expended on short-term "eew look what we can do" space projects could be put to better use down here on planet earth for a while yet. I mean look how we get along right now, we live in pretty squalid conditions of our own making and don't exactly embrace the need recognize how important we all are to each other.
Yes, I concur wholeheartedly that science is a "must" but it has to go hand in hand with how it is applied and careful consideration of the desired results. Our first, toddler-like, steps around the moon and back were very impressive, given our technological grasp at the time, but we are in school right now and need to pay attention and get our homework done to A+ standards and change our attitudes in the playground. (by which I imply that a life driven by goals of finance / material acquisition alone is not enough even if that appears to result in some spectacular science).
"Now that we are in orbit around one of the last unexplored worlds in the inner solar system, we can see that it's a unique and fascinating place."
Oh yeah! - we're all standing on one of the least explored places in our solar system and, since it contains a relative abundance of live, I would suggest that we expend money and efforts investigating the Earth instead. Perhaps we could determine how to continue to live here with a little more sustainability in mind, rather than filling the solar system up with more expensive junk.
Just saying.
(Yes, interesting, but not a big fan, you might be able to tell)
... about as much as a Jubble Telescope ?
Which may or may not be roughly equivalent to 1 x Mega Jub.
(Curiosity - maybe that will be the name future Mars inhabitants will give to it's decayed remains when they are unearthed in years hence - just a thought)
Right, I'm off - jub done :-)
The expansion of Europe was driven and lobbied hard for by the investors and banks that are now crying to mummy that they need help for the results of their woeful, money-grabbing greed.
They weren't doing this for the betterment of Europeans, they drove the expansion because they wanted to reach more punters to hook up to their scams (lending and betting). And they were right in predicting that many new member states would take the bait - sadly one or two or three had eyes far larger than their fiscal stomachs could handle and took a wee bit too much of the magical never-ending money the banks were peddling. Markets, traders, hedge-funds and bankers - CRASH AND BURN the lot of you! - together with the politicians who were/are just too DUMB.
The little people end up paying for the fookin mess again as usual, makes me sick it does.
Money certainly does make the world go round - but money like this makes it spin round too fast until folk can't hold on any more and fly off hitting a wall (collateral banking damage).
Whilst those in the middle of the merry-go-round count their big fat wads and may glance up periodically to witness the spectacle with dead inhuman eyes.
There are alternative ways to facilitate banking / lending - ways that don't make BIG profits, aren't short-sighted and can bring greater benefit to the larger majority of ordinary folk.
Well put, I whole heartedly agree with your statement. We desperately need long-term thinking on the part of politicians and peeps as a whole in order to grasp the fundamental nature of our responsibilities towards our home and the future generations who will occupy it. We will all be gone in the blink of and eye at some point in time, but making it easier and healthier for future generations to continue for as long as possible must be our main aim.
Puts me in mind of the old adage: "Whatever your cause, it's a lost cause, unless we limit human population".
You seem to be under the impression that I support the French law in question. I may or may not support it - that is irrelevant. What I do support is the fact that it has been adopted and is now law in that country (France), and, as such, must be adhered to - despite remonstrations that it may unfairly discriminate against minority groups, even religious groups, who see fit to place their privately held beliefs above the law.
The French State is secular but many widely held religious beliefs are allowed to be held by citizens living there. But this is not about religion - UNTIL YOU declare that your privately held beliefs are above the law. Or that they somehow exempt you from conforming to the law.
What I object to is that peeps hijack ethnic, religious and cultural sympathies to try and go against state laws. Do I have a human right to uphold state laws should I feel so inclined? I certainly don't have the right to infringe them - I understand that.
The defendant quite clearly said (quote)"... all I want to do is live according to my religion"
She is therefore making it a religious matter and not accepting the laws of the state.
Hence she is in contempt of court.
Religion is a private matter and rightly considered so in a secular, democratic state.
This is a question of peeps wishing to claim that their beliefs, in fairies and whotnot, are more important than the democratically arrived at laws of a nation state.
France does not abide by religious laws.
Should she wish to live under religious laws I suggest she attends Charles De Gualle airport and awaits the next flight out to Riad or where ever.
France has come to the democratic decision that the full-veil, or "burqa", is repressive and devisive and that it's wearing under religious grounds is demeaning women folk.
Contempt of court - 1 month in the slammer.
You may wish to live by your religion dear, but the secular state machinery of France (the country you have, for the moment, chosen to live in) requires that religion is left behind when you enter the courtroom and as such, you are found in contempt of court.
Simples n'est pas - prochain.
I've always started from the point of seeking to have a relationship with a woman who has a mind of her own - interesting and intelligent and not in the least bit interested in flashy motors. Sure looks are important but there's so much more than mere superficiality. And no, before you ask, I haven't exactly bedded thousands of women - that's not where I'm coming from (pun intended).
I must be a nerdy, grumpy, freak I guess - but I'm happy that way.
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