Posts by Chris 96 17 publicly visible posts • joined 26 Jun 2009
the not-so-oft-used phrase "buying a pig in a poke" derives from the same situation, where a poke is old English for a small bag (where we get the modern 'pocket').
To buy a pig in a poke means you have no idea of what you are getting.
If its too good to be true - its either not so good or its not true.
There endeth the lesson - I'll get my coat.
cant they just use that software that CSI has - you know, the one where they can take a segment of an image no more than a few pixels big and resolve it into a sharp readable number plate or face or whatever just by pressing a few button?
And another thing: why is all CSI software keyboard driven rather than mouse - noone uses a mouse on that show, not even to marquee an image segment.
'The paper also says “transparency” should “underlie a range of policy interventions”, or as iCOMP put it in its PC submission, there is a “need to foster an Australian regulatory framework which promotes greater choice, transparency, fair prices, and protection from unfair practices from search engines with significant market power.” '
That the way: dont encourage people to take more responsibility and actually educate/improve themselves, just call upon the government to take on that responsibility and increase the nanny state interference.
When will people understand that advancement is achieved by dragging the lower bracket UP, not dragging everyone else DOWN!
until
- the network goes down
- your battery fails
- your phone fails
- someone steals your phone
- someone clones your phone
- the network operator increases the handling charges
- the bank introduces handling charges
- retailers apply a non-phone pay surcharge (á la non-DD payments)
My old dad taught me two things:
You never get something for nothing; and
if its too good to be true, it either isn't too good or it isn't true.
Ok so initial tender quote is £5bn with a target delivery time of 3 years, so in real terms thats gonna be a bout £7bn delivered in about 5 years.
If the history of these sort of things shows us anything, then it is that they invariably overrun on cost and time and underperform, or perform worse than the system they replace, because management think they know how things work and dont bother consulting the front-line troops who do the job day-in-day-out.
No doubt there will be externally driven protocol changes, either during build or shortly after, that will require reworking of the system at additional cost.
Experienced staff will become disillusioned, leave and be replaced by cheap incompetents who can barely spell their names or the words common and sense.
Its all a big waste of my (as an Essex taxpayer) money and will only result in additional cost at a time when we are all being squeezed.
It seems that the corporate solution to everything nowadays is to throw money at a problem until it either goes away or you can no longer see it behind the big pile of discarded notes. The more sensible solution would be to invest in the workers: give additional training so they can perform more efficiently, treat them like people so that they at least tolerate their job, and when a worker is unable to perform despite all assistance, declare them unfit for the job and replace them.
Unemployment decreases, efficiency increases, the 'user experience' improves because staff are more inclined to be helpful, taxes are paid, workers spend money, the economy improves and all is wonderful...
Education, education, edu - frigging - cation.
I carry a digital copy of PACE on my ipod touch and take the time to study and memorise my rights as a citizen and the various powers of my keepers, err .... the authorities.
As soon as I read that story I knew that the militia, err... police had acted outwith their authority.
With the ineternet available to pretty much all (or in the library if not available at home) it is imperative that the people empower themselves with the knowledge to fight back.
If the victim, err suspect had been in a position to ask under what authority the thugs, err officers were stopping him, and then pointed out that that s44 was only exercisable within a designated locale and by uniformed officers, they may have thought twice.
Or they may have just shot him in the head!
I'd rather die on my feet with a bullet in my chest, than die on my knees with a bullet in my back!
I would have to have my head smashed in with a blunt object!
His rationale is that to stop people doing something illegal you should make even more things illegal?
So how is that going to stop the crims (who are already commiting the crime) from commiting the crime?
For the sake of the civilised world, we need to ban these dopey wanker politicians who have no grasp of common sense and who think their hair-brained personal views should be imposed on their electorate.
Fuckfuckfucketyfuck they make me vomit!!!!
so the police cant ram a car-wielding maniac off the road because the maniac may get hurt, so they will let him drive at 100mph through a town until he hits an innocent minding thier own business.
the police wont prosecute politicians who falsify expenses claims and steal money from the taxpayer, but they can 'kettle' those taxpayers when they use their right to peaceful protest and seriously injur or kill those who do not comply.
now they are arming them with longarms that WILL kill. I shoot shotguns and to project anything over 100ft accurately will require that the projectile retains considerable energy out to that range. As you decrease the range you increase the impact energy to the point at which the round will become lethal. The plastic wad from a 12G sporting cartridge will punch through 10mm ply very easily at about 3 meters.
err, just look around you.
Watching a sick film does not make people want to go out and mutilate people, but it desensitises people to such actions and repetative exposure such scenes causes them to be accepted as more 'normal' than society would find acceptable.
Witness the increase in youth stabbings and shootings - in nearly all cases, when the perpetrator is caught, they say that they didnt mean to hurt the victim let alone kill them.
There seems to be a relentless drive to make films and tv programs more and more outlandish, with more extreme stunts and effects. The hero who can be shot a dozen times but still manages to save the day - whereas in reality he would have been a bubbling mess of blood and pain lying crying for his mum. Or the stunt where the good guy chases the baddies across the rooftops and jumps the 20 foot gap between buildings, planting a perfect two-footed landing and continuing the chase. Again, in reality, if he actually cleared the gap, then a two-footed landing without dissipating the impact in a roll or other way would probably pop his hips out.
But wth the youngsters absorbing this sort of tosh, and not being served any 'factual' or educational content, they tend to take the movies as representations of the real. Alas, they learn all too late that sticking a blade in someone doesn't just leave the target requiring a few stitches and trying to take a 90 degree turn at 80mph on the local estate usually ends up with a bunch of dead mums and babies on the payment they just spun across.
take the apology back Andy:
"... that the payment to the Sun's parents was ..."
It's either "... th payment to Sun's parents ..." or the payment to the son's parents ..."
What you have there Chris is that a payment was made to the parents of the central star of this solar system????
Nuclear physics is particle physics which is the primary field of the LHC. Understanding the interraction of particles and the forces that operate on them leads to a better understanding of how to manipulate nuclear particles to close in on the fusion goal.
What you suggest is like saying, I want a faster more efficient car, so put all the money into designing the bodywork and cupholders, but dont spend anything on the motor because we are going to stick with this steam engine!
@ all those who still believe the LHC is capable of creating earth destroying black holes or grey goo - the only black holes are the ones in your heads where the grey goo should be!
"Civil servants have held meetings with TruePosition, a US mobile location firm trying to break into the UK telecoms market."
Rather than a project to protect the law-abiding ctizens of this fair land, it smacks more of soon-to-be ex-civil servants, looking for a seat on the board for helping win a licence-to-print -money contract from the good old UK taxpayer.
Paris - cos she knows where her phone's been
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