Posts by Peter 279 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Apr 2007
I think just trying to divert the beam will have your mirror cooked in microseconds - unless you use it ti take out the laser itself.
I wonder if there is a retroreflector precise and stable enough to send the beam back where it came from, and I winder what would happen if you did..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retroreflector
Re. the taser, I presume there will be a court case for the absence of label like "point this end at target", "keep own body parts out of the way when discharging" and "this may hurt"..
Re. the discharged gun, the guy's an idiot, there is no other explanation. At least he didn't point it at people but I'm unconvinced that wasn't by accident either. First I'd be interested to know why a round was chambered at all unless ALL public places in the US have become dangerous (not just colleges), secondly I'd like to see the guy's training records because it's supposed to be standard procedure to clear the chamber after removing the magazine to render the weapon safe. IMHO he puts his force to shame.
At least the kids were paying attention, I too wouldn't have trusted this guy with anything more complicated than a stick after that stunt..
It's a bit deja vu for me. I once was a Management Consultant and there too was the rather good and interesting work we did completely buried under the crap the company felt it had to expose customers to, up to and including fraudulent billing if they could get away with it.
No "here was your problem and this is how we fixed it", no, it had to be grand presentations involving people who were (a) not even remotely involved, (b) were clueless enough to run for president if it wasn't the UK, (c) were singularly sopophoric in their delivery and (d) would claim the credit because the things we did could only have happened with "great leadership" (ignoring the fact that things usually happened the moment we managed to get them out of the way, and requiring peculiar definitions of both the word "great" and "leadership"). Needless to say, this was all very transparent to the customer.
The result: good and sometimes excellent products (our work) pissed off customers regardless because they really liked us to do more, but were so put off by the constant added BS they eventually gave up. Oh, btw, no guessing who got the blame of the loss of contract..
I see the same with Apple. They are part of that very limited group of tech companies who use design in their products, and most of the time rather effectively (although the iPod/iPhone touch interface and OS handling is IMHO immature, and I switched back to another phone that worked for me). However, the achievements are then so OVERjealously protected that the irritation and lockdown exceeds the pain threshold of anyone actually using the product and abandon it eventually. Abandonment is really worst case, because you have then properly lost a customer for quite some time (something that MS has started to discover with Vista) - a customer so lost will do a lot to avoid going back and will tell friends to avoid the product/service as well.
The problem I have with studies is the sample rate. There are too many stories I hear myself of people having attracted cancer in the vicinity of where they carried their mobile phone.
We're talking about people with nil history of cancer in their family, and I can't dismiss the stories because they're told to me by people who I have yet to find relating anything but facts.
A recent, very close to home skin cancer case here has caused a lot of people to start discarding their mobiles or at least no longer carry them on their person, and cut down on their use, diverting to any landline where possible. As I carry TWO of the damn things (a useful Sony Ericsson P1i and an in comparison frankly disappointing 3G iPhone) I'm working on making it one (the Sony) and keep it offline unless I'm travelling. I have already cabled up my place so I can kill WiFi, is more secure anyway (don't use wireless keyboards or mice, and the cables have ferrite coils :-).
What's more, I used to live with someone who could not get near a magnet or a high voltage power line, it genuinely caused him great pain. This guy didn't fake it - it hurt.
So I'm surrounded by people who appear to provide real evidence of the opposite what the studies say, which is to me a bit of a problem, who to believe? I figured playing it safe was best. And it saves a lot on phone costs :-).
It is proper that we acknowledge the grief for the murder of 5 people, whatever their profession at the time, but let's not get sanctimonious about this.
First, Clarkson is known for his bad jokes -that that is part of his popularity should tell politically correct idiots something- so if you can't handle it you shouldn't watch (there are at least 11 remedial buttons on any remote control, labelled 0..9 and on/off).
Second, from a REAL psychological perspective (not a pseudo "I need votes and press coverage", artificial grief perspective) humour is a better weapon against grief then moping around in a depressed state.
All I see here is a bunch of Jeremy haters and those who need votes to try and run with a bandwagon which is in a worst state than whatever car ever featured on Top Gear.
Was I first? No? Damn.
OK, someone watches Clarkson and is OFFENDED? How politically correct do you have to be? What they did in that episode was showing that their initial attitude towards lorry drivers was wrong, and admitted to it.
About the only thing they missed was showing just how much braking distance a loaded lorry needs and what happens to any car that gets in the way of that (cab driver having to choose between running you over or getting 50 tonnes of load in his neck - any idea what his/her decision would be? Exactly).
I guess the complainants want to get rid of the last remaining shows that are worth watching.
I'd look at the bright side, Top Gear at least doesn't get you pregnant (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7707664.stm - apparently no nookie required :-) ).
Mine's the one with the blindfold, handcuffs and a Columbo DVD..
.. I guess that's what they were REALLY after (i.e. just jealous).
Thank God the Tories are about to be voted in, they had so many incidents involving, umm, "creative" approaches to sex they would think twice about putting any more laws in place :-)
Mine's the one with the chains and handcuffs, thanks.
If they applied a Taser to someone's neck they can be prosecuted for attempted murder. Any idiot applying current there should be immediately locked up and maybe given a couple of educational taserings a day.
So, body mass is thus "safe", and few will try to aim for the head on account of the risk for permanent damage (probe in the eye, that sort of thing). That leaves the rear end and legs, so I guess metallised trousers will be the next item on offer..
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