Posts by John Brown (no body) 25427 publicly visible posts • joined 21 May 2010
"And I worry whether it is really adequately regulated for users' safety."
Regulation implies harm, and since the most senior medical professionals in the country are pushing forward evidence based policy in favour of vaping, then I think someone will have to demonstrate harm before any evidence based regulations are added to those already existing ones.
"No, because that's an entirely natural process."
Fair enough. You won't mind us all following you around and doing the natural thing whenever we're near you then? Or maybe there are social norms around the subject? Maybe vaping simply doesn't have those social norms yet but you'd rather ban it than see if there's a better solution?
"Nothing worse that walking in a crowded area and suddenly being engulfed in a cloud of artificial-smelling nastiness"
It seems you only see a "problem" because you only see the minority who mix their own juices and end up exhaling huge clouds. You obviously don't notice the majority who don't do that.
Next you'll be shrilling "think of the children!" Maybe you think all cars should be banned because you only notice the bad drivers, and barely register the decent drivers?
The joke icon implies that you think that isn't what happens. :-)
the incident was “an isolated event”.
Yes, aren't they all, when things go wrong. But since they don't have a fleet of bots on site, they are technically correct. It was one robot in isolation.
"far more dangerous to US citizens than the terrorists the laptop ban"
Has there ever actually been a "laptop bomb" incident or is this one of those "we have received intel so will ban laptops" things? If the latter, the terrorist just have to keep coming up with ever more ludicrous schemes, drop a hint to the "enemy" security services and watch the results as it "terrorises" the intended targets for little to no effort
"Highly, given how many of the 9/11 bombers were Saudi nationals."
And all those people attempting to take guns onto aircraft at US airports are mainly US nationals. This makes one wonder if US airport security meets the standards they are enforcing on the rest of the world and how many guns are not detected and make it onto US domestic flights.
We keep hearing how incompetent the TSA are yet they are discovering many guns every week. If they are so incompetent, they may be missing 100's every week.
"There is more chance of the second coming of Jesus than getting an update for IoT tat."
True, but now there is official advise out there so that makes it easier to return for a refund (or sue) when it's blindingly obvious that the manufacturer didn't even take reasonable measure to test the security of the device. The majority may not even notice or care, but some will. That's also likely to make the news too, so more become aware. Especially if it leads to class actions and product recalls.
"Is there anybody who actually signs up to receive marketing texts, in full knowledge of what they are doing?"
In some circumstance in the past, yes. But these days many of them just take the piss and send out spams way more often than they need to. No, I bloody well don't need more printer ink from InkFactory and spamming me two or three times per week isn't going to change my mind, it's just going to piss me off enough to go somewhere else next time!!!!
"b) A black teen, who gets spiderman-like powers"
Yes, I think you raise a good point. There's no need to mess with "history" to re-create long running characters as something different to what they are and/or have been for generations of kids growing up. Create new dynamic, heroic roles, be inventive instead re-booting the same stuff again and again. (although to be fair, many of the original TV and film incarnations of superheroes from Marvel and DC in the 60s, 70s and 80s were pretty crap even at the time. Original Captain America anyone?
"If we're going to be picky, didn't Tate effectively become a quasi-Doctor until it started to burn out her brain and she got wiped?"
Well, being picky, she gained some Time Lord power but didn't actually become The Doctor. As did Rose before her. You're probably being mis-led by Donnas comments about gaining the powers where she hysterically referred to herself as Dr Donna.
"Cold caller spam?"
And you can be sure that the previous owner of your new number didn't spaff that number all over the place?
My company mobile number of 10 years was used by a previous employee who also used it for his own business. It was quite literally *years* before calls for him from his clients finally stopped.
"When I was a kid I owned the router, network cables, and my parents computer was my hand-me-down box."
You're parents probably didn't use computers for everything when they were at school. A fair number of current parents of school age kids did. I'd expect them to at least be aware of 'net security, safety and monitoring.
"I wonder if there is a case for the ECHR under human rights. Depriving people of access to something in an arbitrary way."
Rules come into force in 2018, we leave the EU not that long afterwards and once that happens, May will be moving to get the UK out of the ECHR too. She's on record as wanting that. And at the speed justice works, it'll no longer be relevant.
"I seem to recall seeing a programme on TV in the last... year or three... about somewhere foreign* (even more exotic that Scotland), where they also had names for colours that we* would consider mere shades. To their way of thinking, those colours were utterly distinct."
I have that same vague memory. Aussie Aboriginals, or maybe a tribe somewhere in Africa. Many words for different colours of blue but none for green, or something like that.
"Next weeks news ( Fake or not) When the mosquitos we released into the wild the interaction with "X" provided a completely unexpected result...and as such the human population of Fresno was suddenly rendered sterile...."
They all turn into MosquitoMan/Woman and get the superpower of being able to whine irritatingly in the bedroom.
"However there is an alternative, tethered power systems like this "
Does no one build and sell ICE based drones? I could imagine syncing 4 or more 2-3cc engines might be a challenge, or a single larger engine with more complex mechanical linkages and pitch control on the props, but it should be capable of significantly longer flight durations and near as dammit instant "recharge".
"enforce the 'local content' rules for 'local' radio broadcasters, rather than continuing to encourage the unstoppable rollout of national networks such as Heart/Capital/etc."
That's probably a bit difficult to do in an atmosphere of the BBC reducing the local content of their local stations.
"Still, I am very curious what they would say If I refused to let them look inside."
Depending on your local data protection laws and whether the data is personally identifiable, I suspect you should probably not be taking it out of your country anyway. If it's not personally identifiable data and your local laws are ok about it, then I doubt it would matter if they saw it. On the other hand, they may think it's some sort of encrypted terrorist manual and arrest you anyway.
Yes, that was pretty much my thoughts on this guy too! And the price dropping with acceptance in comparison to the various coffee pod machines? That's a joke too. Those coffee pod machines are hugely overpriced too, an average cup being 4 or more times the price of using a normal cheap filter or espresso machine. My espresso in particular cost only about £30 and is easy to clean. (pressure vessel type, not mechanically pumped, so almost nothing to break or wear out)
I wonder how many of those being "let go" were early employees with share options they now won't get? That seems to be the MO with a lot of Silly Valley start-ups.
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