* Posts by Intractable Potsherd

4159 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Jun 2009

Deadly pussies kill more often than owners think

Intractable Potsherd

@xyz

So your argument is "Something is causing me a nuisance, therefore it must die". On top of that, you go further and say "Anyone that disagrees with me should just STFU or risk bodily harm*"

I'll be watching out for your trial with interest. We don't live in the 19th Century any more.

* " ... anyone who complained was offered a physical resolution path"

Intractable Potsherd

Re: @SiempreTuna

Oh, and during a recent hospitalisation for an unknown illness, I was tested for toxoplasma (amongst many, many other things) because it was a reasonable thing to do given that I have had cats for over 35 years now. I don't have it, so that tends to undermine your you silly argument, at least in part.*

* I know; one datum doesn't mean anything scientifically, but s/he wasn't being scientific either.

Intractable Potsherd
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@SiempreTuna

So what is your explanation for the huge number of people that are dog/rodent/snake/fish owners then? Undiscovered bugs that affect the brains of these people, maybe? Or are you just talking out of your arse?

Yes, toxoplasma does *seem" to have *some* effect the behaviours of *certain* cat prey species, but since humans don't fall into that category, I'd say you need to quite a lot more work to prove your point. But then it wouldn't make for cheap jibes, would it?

Intractable Potsherd

Re: The reason they leave the liver/kidney

My favourite cat ever was brain-damaged due to an RTA (rescued him as such via RSPCA). He had a number of odd tastes, the most curious of which was dried banana-chips!

Cameron: We'll turn NHS patients into real-time drugs lab rats

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Oh Danny Boy(le)@Intractable Potsherd

Thanks, Ledswinger - I appreciate the reply. I doubt anyone will read this now, but for completeness:

Free healthcare means that no-one ever has to think about whether they can afford to get treatment for what is wrong with them. The situation is bad enough with people not taking adequate time off work to get well due to losing money (or job).

I really, genuinely, believe that it is the mark of a truly civilised country that anyone can roll up at a surgery without ever having to think about the cost.

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Oh Danny Boy(le)

I don't know if I count as a "sneering leftie commentard", but I have been in two different hospitals as a patient several times for different complaints over the last few years, and dealt with my GP and outpatient services for those and other conditions. I am also an ex-nurse, and I am currently extremely closely involved with the provision of medical law and ethics education to medical students, practitioners, and management . I therefore feel that I am qualified to comment here.*

Overall, my experience of the NHS is that it is still very, very good, but there are areas that are slipping. In terms of diagnosis and basic treatment, I have nothing to complain about. One recent condition was diagnosed as being something completely different from what was being looked for, and the change from one specialist to another was quick and seamless. It is possible that, under a better system the time from diagnosis to surgery (four months) would have been less, but it was not life-threatening, merely (very) uncomfortable and had some impact on my lifestyle for a while. The most recent hospitalisation in January (as far as I can remember - I was very ill on admission) must have cost thousands of pounds in tests while the doctors stabilised me and tried to work out what the problem was.

The down-side is that levels of communication between staff and patient, and especially with my wife, were extremely poor. As an ex-nurse, I find the amount of time that anyone qualified to speak knowledgeably about my conditions either to me or my nearest relative extremely poor. During the last admission I literally had to say to a doctor (the chances of speaking to a nurse were laughably small - absolutely disgraceful, since that is the primary function of a nurse in my opinion) "Please come and tell us what exactly is happening". They had been great at telling me what tests they were doing, and what results they had got, but not at pulling the story together. Disappointingly, the junior doctor who did come to do the job told a different story than the consultant gave me two days later, and I still don't know if I have had a particular intervention done or not!

The major problems in the NHS are: 1) creeping managerialism, with too many people coming from commercial enterprises and having no clue what the basic ethos of the NHS is, and how to maintain it. For instance, I know of one Trust Chief Exec who feels that all clinical ethics problems are management issues, and therefore that Trust has a Clinical Ethics Committee made up entirely of managers! 2) Poor standards of training for nurses. There was nothing wrong with the old apprenticeship method of training that was phased out on the 1980s, but the RCN insisted that nurses need to be more "professional" to compete with doctors. This was an utter disaster, and leads directly to cases where people are dying in hospital due to dehydration, and (to use a case posted here) people with throat cancer are given oral medications. We need an urgent return to nurses being trained on the wards as members of the team (though who would train them properly now we are infested by nurses trained in universities?) 3) Contracting out leading to a lack of team spirit. When I was on the wards, everyone, from the cleaner to the ward manager, was on the same team and did what was necessary. This is no longer the case, and it impacts badly on the patient.

I could go on, but the NHS is still worth fighting for. Treatment free at the point of care is vital in a civilisation, and the information that is locked in the NHS should be freed somehow in order to improve care (indeed, Beveridge expected that there would be no need for a huge NHS after a while because the information generated would lead to better preventive healthcare). If that makes me a "sneering leftie commentard", I'm proud of it!

*I do not discount the possibility that all of these things affect the way I have been treated, and so accept the possibility of observer bias.

Mobile phone health rules need update, warns US watchdog

Intractable Potsherd

Re: All health risks ...

I agree in principle, but, for most Western counties the risk of driving 5-10k miles a year is very, very small. I would also say that 2-5 cigarettes a day is also vanishingly small in terms of risk (and is probably linked to genetic factors, which is why some people do get cancer and others don't, for a given exposure to smoke), and so they wouldn't really help. However, a sensible "this is the risk of something fairly common, and this is how this other thing stacks up" would be extremely useful.

Climate change behind extreme weather, says NASA

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Meanwhile... HAARP installations are on full power

Didn't you mean to use the "Joke" icon there? Surely you don't believe that nonsense?

Intractable Potsherd

Re: FUD definition

FUD = "Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt". At the risk of criticism, I submit this Wonkypedia link for your edification: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty_and_doubt

Radio hams unite to fight off new powerline comms standard

Intractable Potsherd

@Mike G

Only one angry, humourless person 'round here, mate, and it seems to be you.

Disclaimer: I am not, and never have been, a radio ham, but I do use licenced two-way radio equipment for my hobby.

Intractable Potsherd
Facepalm

@Maxson

You have heard of this new technology called "batteries", I take it? Ham radios work just fine off them, even if the power is out for miles around.

Success! Curiosity Mars lander arrives precisely on schedule

Intractable Potsherd
Happy

The only rational thing I can say is ...

... bravo, NASA chaps. Shame you aren't getting the coverage you deserve (at least on UK news), but it's not your fault some shitwit thought it would be a good idea to massacre those poor folks in the Sikh temple. The rest of the headlines could be pushed down the importance list though.

Australians receive SMS death threats

Intractable Potsherd

Re: This once more shows that...

Twenty or so years ago, when I was in a very different line of work, someone offered to "get rid of" a problem person in my life for £100, or the tool to do it myself for £50. I had no doubt the person making the offer was a) serious, b) trying to help, and c) able to fulfil what he was offering. I - very politely - refused the offer!

Life is very cheap to some people.

JELLYFISH bio-bot built with rat cells to mend broken hearts

Intractable Potsherd
Devil

Re: Awesome

But will you still be saying that when the Special Projects Bureau push the envelope??

<< because that's what it might look like!

Top plods reconsidering mega deals with Olympo-blunder firm G4S

Intractable Potsherd

"The mistake is put all your eggs in one basket."

Another mistake is to have a patchwork of allegedly interoperable suppliers. In fact, the whole "let the private sector do public sector work" idea is a huge mistake. There are many things that need centralised control and planning: policing and defence are but two of them.

Intractable Potsherd

Re: OK, so who's getting a job with G4S soon?

So, if selling the police is treason, and selling the police is Tory* policy, then ... ?

* It doesn't matter, though, which group of venal persons are in power - they are all the same. The inability of the LibDems to use their power to stop the worst excesses of the Tories by simply saying "we'll withdraw from the coalition", as happens all over Europe (and probably elsewhere in the world) shows that they are as bad (presumably because they don't want to force an election, since the chances of any of them being re-elected after their spineless performance is negligible).

Japanese publisher, staff arrested over backup software offer

Intractable Potsherd

That law ...

... needs a hyphen somewhere. I leave it up to posters to decide whether it should be the "Unfair-Competition Prevention Law" , or the "Unfair Competition-Prevention Law".

Qantas to provide wireless iPad entertainment on 767s

Intractable Potsherd

Thanks. Michael,

That answers a question I was going to post!

US county named 'area of outstanding natural stupidity'

Intractable Potsherd

Re: 'merkin here to explain some things - Thanks, Koekie

Thanks. It was good of you to respond.

It does seem that we on this side of the pond can fail to appreciate how different things over there are. I have never heard of the level of drug-fuelled crime anywhere in Europe that you describe, nor the fact that anyone would go on a violent rampage because a pot-crop has been destroyed. That also comes back to chicken and egg, though!

It is very easy in the UK to forget that wild animals exist and can be dangerous. The biggest wild animal we have here is the Scottish Wildcat, which would much rather be as far away from humans as it can. I'm off on holiday next week to the Pyrenees, and one of the books I've got warns about brown bears in those mountains (it doesn't give much advice about what to do if you come across one, though!). I had never rally considered that Europe has big, dangerous mammals previously (though I did once have a nasty fright when I came round a corner to find a family of two adult and six young wild boar crossing the path ahead of me!)

Regarding casual v sectarian violence, I think I'd rather have the latter than the former.

Lastly, I wasn't suggesting xenophobia is a trait inherent in the USA, but more that this "carefulness" seems to spill over into international relations, leading to what seems like excessive responses when viewed through European eyes (Iraq and Afghanistan spring to mind, but Japan, Korea, Vietnam might be included).

Intractable Potsherd

Re: $500

Why would someone who is anti-firearms even want to do any shooting? By definition, they aren't likely to have done so. There is a serious problem in your logic.

There is another one too - why should having fired a gun necessarily affect one's opinion regarding the much larger issue of mass gun-ownership??

Intractable Potsherd

Re: 'merkin here to explain some things

It may just be me, but if you are living in the countryside, where are a "gang of thugs" going to come from, and why? It seems to me that this argument is used to justify everyone and their bear carrying lethal weapons everywhere, but is it a realistic argument?

Living in fear of something extremely unlikely (being targetted by gun-totin' thugs, rapists, and drug-addicts) However, I can see the argument that, does make some sort of sense in a country with 90 guns per 100 people, and about a third of the world's known guns (http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/08/28/us-world-firearms-idUSL2834893820070828). You have start from where you are, not where the rest of the world thinks you ought to be, but you can't blame us for trying. This constant fear of the rest of the population goes a long way to explaining the American attitude to the world - if you are constantly afraid of your fellow citizens, you are not gong to be especially trusting of people with different ways - and that is affecting the rest of us very negatively.

Intractable Potsherd
Megaphone

Re: I disagree with your assessment - @Rob Dobbs and others

"None of these are worthy of a Darwin award". Well, that depends - how long could the poor boy face in penal establishments? Remember, this boy - *9 years old* - "... has been charged with unlawful possession of a gun, bringing a dangerous weapon to school and third-degree assault." (from the newspaper article). He might not be out in time to procreate.

I am completely astounded by the whole thing - someone lets a very young child take a loaded gun, presumably badly maintained (how did it go off in his backpack?) to school, and the response of the law is to arrest the child??!! $50k bail? FFS, I thought we were bad (Thompson and Venables was not meant to be a signal to the rest of the world how to deal with very young offenders)!

Western civilisation is looking as if it is dead on its feet.

How to fix the broken internet economy: START HERE

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Its a Minefield

Thanks, fixit_f. They were ideas I'd had, but, like you, I don't see how they are necessary or sufficient to enable the status quo to be maintained. A quick look on rentmystudio.co.uk (found through Google - it is not somethig I've ever looked for previously) shows studios for rent at about £25 an hour or £180 per day in my area (East Midlands), but I'm not sure how long it would take to produce a track/album. It could become a significant cost to someone on low income.

I'm still not seeing the benefit of big studios and restrictive contracts, though :-)

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Its a Minefield

I'm still baffled why, in this day and age, we need "music labels" at all. Musicians have all the resources they need to market their own materials (this internet thing). What is the added value of a label? (Honest question , since I'm not, and never have been, in the music business).

UK snoop system had 1,000 COCKUPS - including 2 duff cuffs

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Error rates and the loss function

@AC - I think Admiral Duncan was putting the point about what *ought* to be the case, not what the current situation *is*. Many people think that the police need to be brought back into society, and have the same (if not higher) levels of responsibility in the event of fucking it up, instead of being immune - one of the first steps on the way to a police state.

Intractable Potsherd
Facepalm

Re: Hate to say this

Gordon 10 and Steve Knox have demonstrated perfectly why the current reliance on numbers over effectiveness is one giant turd sandwich. How I wish we could turn back the clock so that the Thatcherite number-love could be avoided.

Native Americans arrived to find natives already there, fossil poo shows

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Paisley Peoples

They may be Ians, but they definitely dressed in nasty patterns that look like malformed ferns ...

Move over Raspberry Pi, give kids a Radio Ham Pi - minister

Intractable Potsherd
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Re: Not as good idea as it sounds... Hey teacher!

@cazChance - HOW DARE YOU blame the teacher! There are a huge number of thick children out there, because they are not being taught not to be by parents and society at large. Being "thick" involves not being willing to learn from their actions, or to take instruction due to the generalised parental attitude of "I don't want to be bothered, but I'll be damned if anyone else is going to do it instead".

From your later post, it sounds as if you might be one of the rare parents that tries, but please accept that you are in the minority.

Can neighbours grab your sensitive package, asks Post Office

Intractable Potsherd

Re: this is new?

I once did catch a postie pretending to attempt delivery. I saw him come up the path with no parcel in his hand, stuff the card through the door, and then start walking away without knocking. He got the fright of his life when I opened the door before he got to the gate, and said, with my nicest smile, "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't hear you knock"!

On the other hand, we had another postie who would always leave parcels somewhere in the back garden - not a problem in itself, but sometimes he would forget to leave the card saying he had done it, and (to add to the fun) didn't always leave things in the same place. I once had to send back an extra hard-drive because we found the parcel stuffed behind some plants in the greenhouse three weeks after I'd got a replacement due to "non-delivery" ...

UK.gov to clear way for Britain's first SPACEPORT

Intractable Potsherd
Unhappy

Re: Ooops

Isn't it a shame that space exploration is being hobbled by a few people that don't want a bit of noise every now and again?

I am nearly driven to despair by my species.

Google plants rainbow flag in anti-gay countries

Intractable Potsherd

Re: We all trust Google ?

"You'd be happy if Google started putting up stuff about Israel's human rights record ?" Yes - oh, yes! It is about time.

"...or pictures of women stoned to death under Moslem laws ?" Yes.

"Joyful at the idea of pointing out that nearly all rapes by priests are homosexual rapes ?" Yes.

"Given that a large % of Americans believe in some form of Creationism, you'd be happy if Google supported that ? " Absolutely not!

Why the difference? The first three are reportable issues regarding the oppression of people, and there is a chance of getting to the facts. The last one is about something that flies in the face of facts, and which is used to oppress people. Worlds of difference, don't you think?

Intractable Potsherd

Re: It's not evil when we say so.

What is a "natural family", and when was there ever a "right" for children to be brought up in one? The idea of the "natural family" is cultural, and changes across time, class, and borders.

What is the problem with bestiality and necrophilia? No consent issues are raised (assuming the dead body wasn't made so by the necrophiliac!)

Texas Higgs hunters mourn the particle that got away

Intractable Potsherd

Re: @Charles Norrie @Turtle

"... the financial claims on the government have increased enormously.". Hmmmm, well, yes. How many SSCs would the continuous military activity against people with funny-coloured skin and/or strange languages have paid for since the 1960s? That is one claim on the finances the USA could probably let go without anyone except the military-industrial complex shedding any tears.*

*If anyone has the balls to take on the military-industrial complex - something that I don't see happening. Look how quickly they got Obama into the fold.

Used software firms win small victory in shrinking on-premises world

Intractable Potsherd

Re: only being able to service one’s Toyota at the Toyota dealer- @Morris Maynard

"to require the original vendor to service those licences with services such as downloads, access to support sites, etc. *at no additional cost*". Where is the additional cost? If the original contract allowed for downloads, support, updates etc, then it makes no difference that a person different from the original buyer now has the program. Alternatively, if the contract was for paid service/updates, again nothing changes (an we are back to the garage mechanic analogy again).

Like you, I do like the inability to split out licences to keep out those scum with a 'ticket tout' mentality.

69,000 sign petition to save TV-linker O'Dwyer from US extradition

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Civil vs Criminal

@AC 12:52: I agree - on an individual level, £140k over three years is quite a lot, but I specifically used the phrase "in the grand scheme of things". This is peanuts - seriously - and it is difficult to see why the big fuss has been made. As has been pointed out elsewhere, if this had been in £1.4 billion, he would have been effectively immune from prosecution.

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Invitation: Stop!

Thanks, John O'Grady, for putting that far more succinctly than I would have. Whatever this is, it isn't a situation demanding jail-time.

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Civil vs Criminal

In the grand scheme of things, £140k over three years isn't a "lot of money". However, it might be enough to satisfy the "for profit" aspect. However, that needs to be decided by a court so that everyone can have some certainty - and that means a UK court, not USAan one . If the USA want to be involved, they can offer some witnesses to the prosecution, or the court itself.

Patent trolling cost the US $29bn in 2011

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Non-practicing entity?

Trust an American (Twit Romney) to laud the useless hangers-on in society. Making more middle-men is one of the reasons the public have no power.

When it comes to IP, it should follow a simple rule: if you didn't make/create it, it isn't yours to enforce.

Apple wins US ban on Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Probably good for everyone in the end

I want one with two screens, side-by-side. I want to be able to write notes on one side whilst reading the other. I want a good keyboard too (okay, I know the design is getting clunky now!) based on the IBM/Lenovo Thinkpads (dedicated buttons for page back/forward are brilliant!). I want full-sized USB commectivity, with at least one port giving a full 5V output.

Ah, apart from the two screens, my Thinkpad is exactly what I want.

MI5 boss: Cyber spies, web-enabled crooks threaten UK economy

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Be Afraid - and give us more powers

I think that is the subtext to all his FUD - "we* do it - in fact, we probably started it - so others are going to do the same to us".

*"We" = EU/USA/Israel in this case

Google orders spontaneous support for Parliamentary motion

Intractable Potsherd
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@ Rampant Spaniel

"... and the pricing is pretty low, hundreds not thousands, per shot". And here we have the problem. No photograph is worth hundreds, let alone thousands (assuming we are talking pounds/euros/dollars etc) here, unless it has been specifically commissioned at that price (i.e. the commissioner is willing to pay for a specific photograph(s) to be taken because it means something special to her/him/the company).

I recently needed a photograph to illustrate something not-for-profit. I used Google to find photos that met my search criteria, and, of course, some were pay-to-use. I was absolutely astounded at the amount demanded, especially by independents (photo-libraries were merely eye-watering). I ended up using one that was as good as some of the extortionate ones, but which an open access copyright on it.

The internet has made the professional artist redundant - it is time to face up to it.

EU boffins ponder robot copters that carry people but no pilots

Intractable Potsherd
Happy

Errrrrm, Anna ...

... I think you will find that doughnuts are fried, not baked.

Mmmmmmmmm ... dooooouughnuts (gurgle)

Intractable Potsherd
Facepalm

Re: Manual? No.

Errrr ... Suricou Raven, I think you missed something. You managed to get terrorists in, but missed how these would be a benefit (somehow) to paedophiles. You cannot be taken seriously as a fear-monger, I'm afraid.

Brit telco flagship BT joins blockade of Pirate Bay

Intractable Potsherd
Thumb Up

You are correct!

That one works on a Virgin Media connection, whereas the https one above doesn't.

Disclaimer: I have never downloaded anything from PirateBay or anywhere else (I don't have a bittorrent client and never have), but since this land-grab by the media industry, I'm determined to keep popping over to their homepage to show that I do not approve of censorship.

Fatties are 'destroying the world'

Intractable Potsherd
Thumb Down

I don't care.

I am still not going to cycle on the road. It's bad for me, and it is bad for other road users. I'm quite happy taking the bike on my car to somewhere I don't risk opprobrium/death/serious injury, but that's all.

Intractable Potsherd
Happy

Re: They couldn't keep their mouth shut

I wonder how many people are completely baffled by this strand!* (I was immediately reminded of "Get Them Out by Friday" as soon as I read the headline!)

* It's a song on one of Genesis' early albums, "Foxtrot". Lyrics by Peter Gabriel, music by the whole team.

Brussels could 'clash' with London over UK snooper's charter

Intractable Potsherd

Re: IRA - That's not how I see it.

"... they get into power, then see what the civil servants and secret squirrels say is happening, "

There, fixed that for you.

Australia sanguine on Assange-to-Ecuador, would fight US extradition

Intractable Potsherd

Re: CIA @Don Jefe

As the commenter above has said, your political ignorance is astounding. If you have nothing better to say, I suggest you keep quiet to avoid embarrassing yourself further.

Intractable Potsherd

Re: Shanks Very Much

"Rapist" only in a very odd way that only Sweden seems to recognise. (Yes, I think the myriad considerations for rape in the Sexual Offences Act are too broad, so I have no time at all for this bizarre concoction the Swedes have conjured up).

Google in dock again over defamatory auto-complete

Intractable Potsherd
Happy

Re: Do these idiots actually believe ...

I've never checked (it would feel narcissistic), but I suspect my name is unique - how many people called "Intractable" have you met?