Posts by some vaguely opinionated bloke 129 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Jan 2010
"far from being afraid of us they actually seek 'us' out now, apparently to learn more about us"
Though their scientific advances in the understanding of humans is somewhat tempered by the unfortunate situation of being published in peer-reviewed journals that then fall apart when read by other whales, what with them being all soggy and stuff.
Just as well you don't.
The last Haynes manual for the classic Mini had less than 1/8 of the information covering the gearbox than the edition released 15 years beforehand, yet the gearbox hadn't changed.
Most of the gearbox section said "you might be able to work out what's up with it, but just in case, take it to a Rover dealer", rather than still giving enough information to do a complete strip down and rebuild for less than a 1/4 of the price of a garage fitting an allegedly reconditioned gearbox.
<- pint of brewed beverage for the good ol' light blue 646, pint of poisoned acid for the dark blue pretender
"The nearest reference library to me is an hours drive away. (And then an hour's drive back.) "
Have an unsarcastic beer on me.
I have no idea why that made me laugh as much as it did. Just something about it clarifying that the route and typical traffic conditions are the same in both directions.
"It's a 45 minute drive before the morning rush hour and only 1/2 hour back when the schools are off or after 9 at night. If I leave the car there, it's closer to 3 hours, unless I take the shortcut across the misty heathland..."
I got it, I understood the idea behind it and found it witty and appreciable.
However, and not wanting to get too far into a critique, I felt the need to comment as it was a bit like being asked the question "name a popular fruit" and responding with "Kevin"*.
It'd still be a witty and appreciable response, but somehow not quite in keeping with the suggestion that led to it.
* apologies to all the Kevins out there who are not popular fruits but think they should be and all the popular fruits out there who are not named Kevin but also think they should be, and all the Kevins who are popular fruits but wish they weren't named Kevin, weren't popular or weren't fruits.
"deaf people do... use telephones. For one-to-one conversations there is the textphone... or via BT's typetalk service"
To be a little pedantic the NTNON sketch used an analogue dial-faced telephone. Whether this was plain irony or they couldn't get hold of a textphone at the time, I'll leave you to decide 8-)
"... Bible scholars will tell you that the Hebrew word for day used in Genesis 1, can only mean an ordinary day in this context."
"We are told God created the first man and woman—Adam and Eve—on Day Six. Many facts about when their children and their children’s children were born are given in Genesis. These genealogies are recorded throughout the Old Testament, up until the time of Christ. They certainly were not chronologies lasting millions of years."
... so if days really were days, then years really were years, thus proving that Methuselah really lived for 969 years...
"So, you haven't noticed all the plant growing seasons starting earlier, the insects hanging around into the middle of the winter, the development of long late indian summers stretching well into november and other similar massive changes that have taken place since the '80s?"
That's weather, not climate.
8.2 -> 8.1 is indeed becoming more neutral. However, those who choose to can say that this is - semantically at least - becoming more acidic as the value is moving from a position of negative acidity to a position of less negative acidity, in just the same way as someone else can say that the value is moving from neutral with alkaline tendencies to neutral with less alkaline tendencies.
Basically, it's changing, and that might be bad. Or might not. Who knows. Right now, I'm more concerned with trying to work out why I originally tried to use the non-word alkalic instead of alkaline.
... in the last 10 - 15 years...
Even before I found my way blinking and quivering onto this 'ere interweb thingy, someone at work passed round a leaflet all about Monsanto, their evil empire, aspartame and how it caused Gulf War Syndrome due to being left outside in the Kuwaiti heat and turning into cans of pure formaldeyhde.
The censors have obviously been far more active round your neck of the woods...
Now, where's that last can of Diet Coke gone..?
Did you mean "Why should the government allow the MPAA to influence law when [the MPAA have] been affiliated with organized crime since the 1960s?"
Or did you mean "Why should the government allow the MPAA to influence law when [the government have] been affiliated with organized crime since the 1960s?"
... whenever I have spelt it - which isn't often - with the theory that KYBOSH as a word is a backronym for "Knock Yer Block Off, Shit Head".
This obviously doesn't make much sense when using it in the context of "putting the knock your block off shit head on something", but does sort of fit when used in the context of "if you don't shut up, I'll kybosh".
I did hear - and use - the the word long before hearing the backronym however my usage of the term has mostly been in the former context, with occasional latter context usage.
The specific backronym above may be related to a kids TV program called "Knock Your Block Off" in which opposing children would attempt to punch through or knock down a wall between them and their opponent; within the show (and I seem to recall within the Radio Times) this was abbreviated to KYBO. But that's just my theory.
"places like Cuba and various South American countries have all seen vast improvements in literacy and healthcare for the poor under socialist regimes... pretending that it does nothing at all for the poor is just blatantly false."
So now that literacy and healthcare are vastly improved, the poor can be poor for longer, and be able to write about being poor.
Woo.
"(comparatively) humdrum lab work". Whilst jumping out of a plane. Blindfolded. On a surf board. Now *that* would be Extreme Boffinry.
Wait til Red Bull get to hear of this, there'll be lab coats aplenty fluttering down all over the place. The bigger problem of course will be the length of rubber tube needed for Bunsen burners.
(Goggles, yes please, number 5 shade minimum, ta)
"Going on for twenty years ago some friends an I were going on a long road holiday in some old cars and wanted a way to stay in touch."
There are quite a few of us (still in Minis) who still do the same thing. Makes it handy for comms between club members during those long trips to shows, or getting directions from the lead car when travelling from LE to JOG.
And the peeps are even fewer and further apart.
"Halley's appearance in 12 BC, only a few years distant from the conventionally assigned date of the birth of Jesus Christ, has led some theologians and astronomers to suggest that it might explain the biblical story of the Star of Bethlehem. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halley%27s_comet#Apparitions
(disclaimer: wikifact and IANAC)
Fair enough, have a go at Google for recording everything about each and every link you click on in their quest for global domination, but I'd be surprised if sites like Facebook don't already analyse clicks on each link out of their site.
When clicking on most external links you're already passed through their handy URL redirect scripts, which are probably compiling huge lists of external visited links for later cloudy processing.
This would already allow Facebook to get to know what is most likely to take people away from Facebook and they probably already know what each Facebook user is most interested in.
If anything, this will just be business as usual (analysis of links) with an added "safety layer" on top (link validation). Hardly the stuff of conspiracy theory or paranoia.
"Sorry no. You have obtained a license to be able to play it any time you wish"
Like at the weekend, perhaps, when despite purchasing a license to be able to play it any time you wish, you weren't able to play it.
There may be a crossover argument that, as you own the medium on which the film is stored then you do own the stored film, but you can't watch it without a combination of the license (as purchased) and the DRM servers (as should be available at all times so you *can* play it any time you wish).
Personally I haven't bought any Apple TV boxes, let alone immediately or eventually rooting any or indeed installing XBMC. Consequently I have none of them to be used purely to play downloaded DRM-removed copies of movies off my home NAS boxes.
... and at the moment I don't, but do you happen to have:
- a source for the figure of "More than 500 people have died immediately after being tasered"?
- something a little more concrete than "it's safe to say that probably at least"?
- some record of "influence[d] medical examiners"?
I'm no supporter of taser deployment myself, but I'd like to see some more evidence for the above.
No option to commute by train.
Bicycle possible but then that's not public transport unless I "borrow" someone else's.
Workplace is 4 miles from home depending on route.
Commute by car: 20 mins per day
Commute by bus: 140 mins per day using 2 buses, 10 mins walk in between
Costs by car: £7 per week *
Costs by bus: £4.20 per day **
* fuel only, based on self-calculated cold running MPG. I'm deliberately not including vehicle excise duty, insurance or maintenance as I'd still own and run the car even if I commuted by bus
** to be fair a weekly ticket would "only" cost £10, but that would make the difference in costs less sensationalist
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