Posts by TRT 9611 publicly visible posts • joined 11 Sep 2009
of 'Citizen Khan' was totally ruined last night when Dave suggested they watch the cricket on what was clearly an analogue set with a built in loop aerial. You'd have thought the BBC could have done better. Well, you'd have thought they could have done better than Citizen Khan, actually.
I sense that the fervour is no longer about the product itself but the experience of buying it; a sort of retail equivalent of mass hysteria. Totally bizarre, IMHO.
People, we have gone beyond the OOBE. Now is the time of the BOOBE*.
*I was toying with BYBE (Before You Buy Experience), but went for the cheap nork reference instead.
It's not quite the same thing because the insertion of the genetic material is done using a viral injection system. There's also the issue of the marker genes you insert alongside your new gene which indicate that there's an increased chance that you've hit the mark - things like making certain sugars, glowing in the dark, that kind of thing. Plus there's the chance that you will disrupt a control sequence which might turn on a dormant gene that makes a poison or a potent allergen, or that you will turn OFF a gene that makes some nutrient. Besides, the leakage of genetic material is the LEAST worry of the crowd ringing the alarm bell. It's what you might call the indirect effects of the implementation of the technology.
Such as increased use of herbicides and pesticides, particularly those partnered to a product like Roundup which can lead to super weeds and a loss of biodiversity in the field and its margins, the subsequent loss of or damage to predator species, such as the DDT that built up in the eagles that ate the lizards that ate the bugs and the mice that ate the crops that the DDT was sprayed on.
Selective breeding involves crossing species, selecting those with characteristics you desire and refining those breeds. It takes years, and at every step you are checking. Even so, mistakes arise using that kind of husbandry too.
It's not the science that is scary, it's what the people who have just emerged from cave dwelling will DO with that science that is the scary part. Like not following the directions for use, pouring more and more weedkiller on the crops because more is surely better? Like popping headache tablets as if they are sweeties in order to get rid of that darned pain behind the eyes, you know, the one caused by you screwing up your neuro-receptor balance.
I could go on.
the other GM news out this week.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19585341
Superweeds that have developed a resistance to Roundup on their own. Because anything Monsanto can do to a plant, nature can do too. Where do you think they got the gene from in the first place? It was obvious it was going to happen.
BTW n=20 is vastly insufficient as a control group for anything other than a preliminary fishing trip.
trying to create something that didn't already exist, then it would have been hats off to them for the effort. But they aren't. I haven't seen the new map.app yet, so I'll refrain from spouting from a bath of ignorance, but one thing I *can* complain about is that change they made way back to the ALS cache. Having only an iPod (preferring my telecomms via a regular 19-days on standby talky device), I liked the way it would remember forever what WiFi it had seen and fill in the location later when it could get online. I knew that if I'd driven or walked or train-ridden or bussed around a place, I'd be able to get a blue dot. Now, if I've spent more than 7 days not being somewhere, the cache is cleared and it becomes lost again. I fully appreciate the privacy concerns, but I'd have liked a switch in the prefs to retain the old behaviour. The problem wasn't the size of the cache, it was the lack of encryption for it. Same as I'd have liked a control to cache more map data. It was kind of handy to have all those geopoints in there for the bus tracking parts of Malcolm Barclay's excellent travel app(s).
Nowadays I barely use the map app. I used to enjoy watching the little blue dot jump around the screen.
if everyone in the whole world use their mobiles to simultaneously dial the same phone number, it will break down the fabric of space-time and leak radiation into the Medusa Cascade allowing a dangerous alien interloper to follow the signal and kill us all TO DEATH. It's not a risk I'm willing to take.
I'd put the port in the door recess under a removable panel. That way, you have to have the door physically open in order to reach the connector. For ODB tests that require connection whilst the car is in motion, you could always lead the ODB connector out with a thin flexible cable pinched in the door seal.
I had to buy a new freeview box as my old one was fritzed. This new one has a brilliant HD/SD setting which automagically tracks programs onto an HD alternative channel. Brilliant! I was watching a program on BBC Four, and the box flipped over to BBC HD, then back again when it had finished. At least having 101 for BBC1HD and 103 for ITV1HD etc will make life easier on the non-magic box in the other room.
Mind you, I saw something I've never seen before last night on a +1 channel. It said "This program cannot be shown on a +1 channel for legal reasons." Hmm...
Yeah. You get a cast iron ring with a sharp cutting blade on the bottom and a lip wide enough to hold a layer of bricks. You put it on the ground, dig out the inside and let the weight of the ring push it down. Build a layer of bricks on the ring and dig again. You end up with a lined well as deep as you like.
that women slap on the red lippy to make their faces resemble a baboon's arse in heat.
Ah yes:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2012/04/red_genitalia_study_testing_the_sexually_salient_hypothesis.html
Well, now we can expand the hypothesis to cover goth chicks.
Paris, because it's obvious.
Do we house them on the moon too?
Ack. It'll be bought up by media moguls or Cola-Cola corp or some such and used to beam more advertising at us. You'll be there with your arm round your girl under the stars, glance up at the romantic full moon above only to be greeted by an advert for Durex or Skyns or what-have-you...
I can see the reg headline now...
Mad men monopolise moon-mooning monkey matrix.
It'll all end in tears you know.
<quote>I start with a cheap ex-corporate IBM box from eBay, then tweak it to my satisfaction </quote>
Hmm... our facilities director bought a job lot of Dells from a broker. They'd been pulled out of the sweat room of a Dutch investment bank. We benched them all out, each of our new classrooms held 64 of them, powered them on by WoL ready for Ghost-casting and within 30 seconds had to abandon floor as the air filled with the fug the PSU fans pumped out. Apparently smoking was still allowed in the trading rooms, smoking of dubious substances too by the stink. It took use a week of 24/7 running, a case of air freshener and the aircon set to full speed before a novel nose couldn't detect the pong anymore. Couldn't risk the students either complaining of or enjoying the smell.
A certain well known IT company (who some would say would see Parker Bros in court if they rounded the corners of the playing board!) was for years rumoured to have based its logo on Turning's end move. OK, it's an urban myth, but a very pervasive one and the one that many years ago made me hunt out the chap's contribution to science. I'd prefer to play the game variation that's been included.
I worked in the kitchens of their Manchester plant as a student in the 80s. And I also worked for Tandy, who rebadged loads of their kit and sold it under their Realistic name. It was good merchandise, and a great place to work.
This is a rather drastic step for them to take. I hope they can pull it off.
The look of the Stallone one was much better than the stills and clips of this that I've seen so far. I had the good fortune to "meet" the big robot from the Stallone film at a launch event in Levesden studios (along with the Alien Queen, Darth Vader, the Aliens APC etc...) Anyway, the robot and the GM judges and all of that... too much in one film, too much of a departure from the old 70s/80s Dredd I read at boarding school...
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