* Posts by Robert Long

130 publicly visible posts • joined 29 May 2007

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Three Gorges Dam an 'environmental catastrophe'

Robert Long

Thames

The Thames was fucked up before the UK had democracy. Not that it makes any difference, since the NHS IT system is modern and has all the hallmarks of the 3 gorges dam fiasco on a slightly smaller scale.

"And as for "...yes, it could the a spark that starts a revolution in Mainland China, sooner the better." - ARE YOU INSANE? You really want to see what the destabilisation of 1.3billion people would be like? The Three Gorges would look like the bloody teddy-bears picnic in comparison."

Yes but it's going to happen and it has to happen, really. There's already 100,000 armed uprisings in China PER YEAR. That's a real dam burst waiting to happen.

Legal threat to 'Green nuke' consultation

Robert Long

Standard of living

"What does greenpeace suggest as an alternative?

We all love our Computers, DVD players, Xboxes and TV's more than we love 'Nature'. and anyone who says different is either a fool or a liar!"

This is a very good point, actually. We're brainwashed from a very early age to want more and more consumer goods. Why? Because using more is the only way that shares can increase in price year on year rather than stabalise. Since all the people involved in government have their snouts in the capitalist trough in one way or another they have to drive demand ever upwards to keep the backhanders and cosy non-exec directorships coming.

But in reality, my standard of living is fine right now. I don't need it to improve at all. So, one alternative is to stop increasing our usage every year just so that Jeremy Stockbroker can buy a new Porche. Instead of puring more and more energy down the drain and having to find ways to supply it, maybe we should just concentrate on using less.

Nucear isn't a great answer, not just because no one has solved the waste issue, but because it's fuel distribution is even worse than oil's. If we depend on uranium mines for our economy there'll be even more wars than at the moment. Sunshine, for example, is something America has quite a lot of, so there might not be any need for them to send teams of murderers, rapists, and torturers all over the world to secure supplies if we got solar working well. Which would be an improvement for everyone everywhere.

Attacking multicore CPUs

Robert Long

Science in a dark room

"I don't do papers. They obstruct research horribly."

Research that's not published is just wasted time.

"these problems arise from incorrect design, and can be fixed accordingly by making the design correct"

Zeurkous appears to be living in a bubble. The above statement is about as useful in the real world as the advice "If you want to get to the top of Everest then you simply have to climb up it in some fashion". The execution of both of these masterful plans is a great deal harder.

Well, enough feeding Mr Troll; I'm sure his ivory tower has people to do that for him.

Artist formerly known as The Artist Formerly Known As Prince attacks internet

Robert Long

Re: Prince is a tosser

"I'm allowed that much obscenity on here I hope?"

No. Get out.

Greens walk out of nuclear debate

Robert Long

@Wade Burchette

"In the US, even in the 3 Mile Island meltdown a grand total of 0 people died. Nuclear power is safe."

Yeah, right. The US Govt's figures for domestic deaths due to flooding a a pack of lies; what makes you think they'll be honest about something which would affect the shares of big lobby groups? We have no way of knowing how many people died as a result of 3 Mile Island.

And, of course, it's hard to pin down deaths from radiation except in huge doses because it only decreases life-expectancy which is not a known figure. It's very similar to all those tobacco companies standing by and saying "prove it" for decades. We know it kills, but it's very hard to point at WHO it HAS killed.

"The only downside is the waste."

And, of course, that's just a minor issue, isn't it? LOL!

Compact Disc: 25 years old today

Robert Long

LPs

Yes, LPs sound better than CDs. If you are under 25, have a £2000+ system, and only play them twice. After that, the effect of dragging a diamond through a small plastic channel takes its toll. To say nothing of the effects of small children or moving house.

LP's are crap and I'm very glad they are a thing of the past.

An inconvenient update

Robert Long

AGW-deniers

AGW-deniers made up the majority of atmospheric scientists for 100 years after it was first proposed. They lost the argument and now resort to science by PR.

BT rubbishes BBC bandwidth throttling reports

Robert Long

Sales and Marketing

Of course, there wouldn't be an issue if ISPs didn't insist on fraudulently selling bandwidth they don't have. But, naturally, it must be someone else's fault for providing content the ISP's customers might actually want.

AMD passes the collection plate again

Robert Long

Damn him, damn him to hell!

That Hugh Debit, he's just too expensive with his fancy consultancy and his paint.

eBay 'Buy It Now' button survives latest attack

Robert Long

This is a Good Patent

I heartily support any patent that would rid eBay of all those idiots that have failed to grasp the concept of an auction. Look for anything camera-related and all you get is pages of dodgy Hong Kong shops with Buy it Now at the normal retail price.

The terrorists I party with

Robert Long

Muted?

"The reaction to the attempted bombings in London and Glasgow was very muted by the Government, and as you'd expect it would be from the mainstream media."

If by "muted" you mean that they waited 30 minutes before declaring the cars a massive terrorist attack on the infrastructure and the capital of the country , 24hrs before blaming al-Qaeda, and a fortnight to use it justify a reduction in freedom and the rule of law, then I see your point.

Or to put it another way: don't talk shite.

Cat senses impending death

Robert Long

Vigils

Maybe the cat is just coming to see why everyone's sitting around Grandma's bed. Cats are like that.

Miss America calls for mandatory internet safety classes

Robert Long

Omnipresent Parents

I have to say that I'm impressed by the number of people here who accompany their children all day every day and don't allow schools to interfere with their education nor allow them to spend any time with their peers without constant monitoring by adults who share the parents' values.

And, of course, children would never, ever do something that they've been clearly warned about. I mean, who's ever seen a child smoking? Or watching a DVD at a friends's house that was too high an age category for them? Such behaviour would be madness!

Also, I'm not sure they crucified Jesus for being a paedophile.

Computer program to take on the Unabomber

Robert Long

Skill is not intelligence

Deeper Blue was highly skilled at chess but no more intelligent than a block of wood; moles are skilled at digging tunnels and wasps at turning wood into paper buildings.

After all these years there's still no sign of a better test than the Turing Test and nothing has come close to passing even that rather loose definition of intelligence. AI research is really all about developing a more sophisticated system for extracting grant money from various patrons.

Second Life gets its first copyright law suit

Robert Long

I wish to make a statement on behalf of the masses

Who gives a toss?

Thank you.

Teenagers prefer mobiles to sex

Robert Long

Darwin at work

The scourge if mobile phones could be wiped out in a generation! That's the best news I've heard all year.

Rivals torture consumers via Microsoft

Robert Long

Originality as defined by MS/Apple fanboys

The desktop search (or, rather, the "whole-hard-drive-cached-text search", since desktops were rare back then) idea was introduced, at least to me, by a Byte article in the early 80's, complete with a fully working source code implimentation of the indexing and search. I think that claiming Microsoft are the original and Apple jumped on the bandwagon is really straining historical fact. What MS *have* contributed is the ability to so badly organise your files (and programs-see "Start menu") that you really, really need something to tame it. Pity it'll take you three hours to delete that incriminating file once you have found it!

Harry Potter and the Pedant of CIX

Robert Long

Langford V Rowling? No contest

Langford (nice bloke, deaf as a post) has been in the business far longer than JK and knows a lot more about the field than she does. If anyone can reliably pick out the many sources that have "inspired" the background and plot of the Harry Potter books, it's him. Rowling is a literary lightweight despite her success and Langford has probably forgotten more about fantasy writing that she'll ever know (or admit to knowing for that matter).

Hacking WoW and the pursuit of knowledge

Robert Long

Bad design is bad design

The comparison to Rolexes comes close to the mark. But MMORPGs are like fakes being sold to chumps who believe them to be the real thing. WoW and its ilk are deadful, badly designed fruit machines that never pay out. The role-playing is minimal to the point of vanishing and the gaming aspect is so dull that only the most unimaginative autist can derive some pleasure out of them.

If these things were good, well designed, games there would - self evidently - be no need to build bots to take the tedium out of playing.

Steve Jobs: struggling to redefine the TV paradigm

Robert Long

You're all MAD!

Where the hell is all this bandwidth going to come from?!

The ISPs are already struggling with the consequences of their gross overselling as it is. Add in a mass market for even DVD-quality, let alone HD, movies and there's absolutely no way in which enough stock can be shifted to make a business plan work. It just can not physically be done in the UK or the US at least (I have no idea how bad overselling bandwidth is in countries where 100MBit lines are available).

So, just forget it - good quality movies over the Internet are probably the best part of a decade away here or in the States.

UK government tunes out debate on DNA database

Robert Long

Frameup heaven

Given how easy it is to fake DNA evidence the whole database should be closed down - there's simply no way to stop the police framing someone with easily obtained samples.

Macs are more secure: official

Robert Long

Subtle

Basically, Apple meant "Windows" but didn't want to say "Windows" because it's in their interest to confuse the OS with the hardware and so limit the understanding of Joe-public (you know, the mouth breathers who watch Big Brother) that there are other possibilities, ie, Linux.

The ASA has played into their hands by the Wikipedian system of "reality by vote": most people think "PC" refers to Windows, therefore it does, QED.

Israeli boffins bring life to human neuron culture

Robert Long

There's a movie about that

Der Golem

NASA chief regrets having unpopular opinion

Robert Long

Grapes of Warmth

Webster Phreaky:

"700 years ago the Romans grew grapes in Northern Briton and Scotland, try that now "

OK. Paines Hill in Surrey's been doing it for ages. In fact, the number of vineyards in England has been growing steadily since the 50's. This is pure co-incidence, of course, there's no reason to think that vineyards are a gauge of climate...er...except that was your whole point, wasn't it? So which is it?

I don't know anything either way about Scottish wine production so I can't make any comment.

Ads watchdog okays Intel 'world's best processor' claim

Robert Long

Subjective

The problem is that they didn't say "fastest" - they said "best".

Intel has yet to produce a processor as good as the MC68000, although they long ago beat it in speed by piling on the hacks and heat to produce one of the ugliset chips known to Man.

2012 Olympics logo debuts to whalesong

Robert Long

Not the swastika

It's the S.S.'s "Thunderbolts" in reverse.

Fair enough, given the degree of surveillance London will be under by 2012.

Not happy with PC World's customer service?

Robert Long

There's no service like no service

PC World have been making it a feature of their shops to ignore customers for years. I remember going into one in Aldershot to buy a specific machine that they had in stock. Twenty minutes later, after having asked four people including the manager to sell me the damn thing I left, pissed on the building (no toilets for customers enduring long waits) and ordered from Dabs instead. I had to wait a couple of days for it to be delivered but if I'd waited for the staff at PC World, I'd still be waiting today.

Zero-day sales not 'fair' - to researchers

Robert Long

Parasites

No matter what the field of human endeavour, there'll always be parasites trying to screw over their fellow Man. The best thing to do is break their legs when you catch them.

'Brown should rethink EU proposal on VAT'

Robert Long

Simplest solutions are the best

Just scrap VAT altogether.

It is a grossly unfair and complex tax which should never have been introduced. Increase income tax to make up the loss and then we can give the poor some breaks on it. With VAT, the poor are taxed much harder than the rich, as a proportion of their income and it's very hard to give them any reduction in the rate they pay.

UK firms contest 'absurd' software patent ruling

Robert Long

Absurd indeed

As usual, it is the European patent system which is absurd. In this context, the software is simply a component of the washing machine. Should the distribution of replacement drive belts breach the patent? Of course not. Likewise, neither should the distribution of a software component, that should be and is covered by copyright law.

These companies are seeking to have extra special protection of a component which is already more than adequately protected by copyright in order to make a landgrab on the spares market and create a lock-in for comsumers.

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