Posts by CJM 12 publicly visible posts • joined 19 Apr 2012
Ah yes, the old concept of false equivalence... deflecting attention from a fair question.
One option does not have to be perfect to be considered preferable to another option. The British legal system is far from flawless, but to compare it to Russia is unfair.
By all means, do what you can to improve things. but have the good grace to realise how relatively fortunate we are to live under this system.
"Now, we could run through the usual counters on did Jefferson mean that it was the free that needed to keep an eye on their government, or was it that the government had to keep an eye out to threats to the people"
Regardless, I'm pretty sure that Jefferson didn't mean that governments should key an eye on their people... Especially not such an invasive eye...
Indeed. I'm with Stephen Fry (amongst many other)....
A Pardon suggest the state is forgiving them for their crimes. I suggest we have two better alternatives:
- Do not pardon and do not retract or expunge the convictions - they were a sign of the times, no matter how abhorrent; we can't expunge every conviction for every dated or ill-conceived law - and Lord knows, we've had many.
- If we must take action, at least expunge these convictions from the records of all individuals convicted. Don't selectively excuse them for their 'crimes' - have the balls to acknowledge the law was wrong and therefore the convictions were 'unsafe'.
Personally, I prefer the first option, with the caveat that we continue to highlight the perversity of the law rather than the convicted for future reference...
Graphics is one area where most gaming PCs leave consoles in the cold; they are behind in every other hardware aspect too.
Not enough memory, so game maps tend to be small, lots of loading screens etc. CPU is far weaker than modern PCs, not that games are especially well coded to take advantage of the numerous cores we can all now call on.
"but all the really big, important innovation happened years ago"
This is kind of my point.
There is a story that a century ago, a Patent Office official resigned and recommended that the Patent Office be closed because he thought that everything that could possibly be invented had already been invented.
Likewise, the fact that we haven't had much innovation recently is not a testament that we have reached the technological pinnacle, but that companies have eased off and are happy to just milk the punters of their cash.
I'm a keen gamer, and though I'm glad for a reprieve in a time when I have other things to spend money on, I do resent how PC gaming has been help back by the consoles.
I don't want to go back to insane upgrade cycles of 5-10 years ago, but I'd like to see things edging forward a little faster. With that in mind, I'm surprise the h/w manufacturers are investing more in games development, so better, more demanding games = sales.
Current game devs are happy with the h/w stagnation; working on exactly the same platform each time means they can keep rattling of 'new' games at a rate of knots. I'd do the same if I was them... which means it's up to someone else to provide the incentive to continue improving...
ICO know the law is pants, but unlike most other European countries that have absolutely no intention of ever enforcing the law, ICO feels obliged to try to do it's job. So they've given us an extra year and outlined that their interpretation of compliance is as relaxed as you could possibly get without completely ignoring the law.
Everything ICO say on this issue comes from a positiion that screams "this law suck - do the minimum necessary to look like you are taking it seriously and we'll leave you alone - because we've got better things to do too!".
I'm not ICO fanboy, but they dreadful law wasn't their doing - blame the Eurocrats for that.
You have to provide an opt-out.... however that opt-out can be in the form of 'go away!'.
Which is precisely what my sites do. "We use Google Analytics to record usage information, which requires the use of non-personally identifiable cookies. Continue, use your browser to block these cookies, or do not use our site"....in short.
According to the study...
The mortality rate of 'Underweight' people as a whole is 200% that of 'Normal' people.
The mortality rate of 'Severely Obese' people as a whole is 125% that of 'Normal' people.
The mortality rate of 'Severely Obese' people (excluding those with diabetes etc) as a whole is 100% that of 'Normal' people.
Don't get hung up on the diabetes bit - the study clearly states that Severely Obese people face better odds than Underweight people. If true - that is, if we can find no other mitigating factor - this is a significant observation.
I'm with EUKHost, but just like wowfood, I am less concerned because I also pay through Paypal. If not, I'd certainly be changing may cards.
In their defence, at least they have been reasonably upfront, and there are bigger and better companies to have suffered worse. EUKHost have been OK for me; not stellar performance, but they have been *reasonably* reliable. if nothing else, they can be contacted for support and usually they'll get you a solution,
Nevertheless, I'd be willing to try someone else if I could get something for the same money, but at £22/mo for a Windows VPS, there aren't many competing deals. So currently I accept that I'm not paying top dollar and therefore I can't expect premium performance and features.
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