Posts by Stilted Banter 45 publicly visible posts • joined 18 Jun 2013
Despite being around 24 years old I still use the Hantarex every month or so
Old kit definitely has its limitations. I didn't realize the frequency with which one can use it declines in direct relationship with one's age. How often did you use the Hantarex when you were still, say, "around 23 years old"?
Logical thing is for me to have my own drone, which I can send to pick things up at a time that suits me. I'm sure Amazon will sell me one. I could also use it to pick up and deliver items for neighbours and friends. Amazon could set up a scheme for this and call it "ParcelPartner". For every 1000 successful sorties I would get an Amazon ParcelPartner voucher giving me 0.00002p off my next qualifying order.
19 per cent of people have worked while going to the bathroom
I take it this doesn't actually mean 'going to the bathroom', to shave perhaps, put a towel away, or get another carton of ibuprofen out of the medical cabinet, but is an instance of that US American euphemism for 'going to the toilet'. I have carried out work-related activities while in the bathroom, but have never done so while 'going to the bathroom' US-style.
According to the statistics in the UK, as a pedestrian you are 272 times more likely to be killed by a driver than by a cyclist, and even on the pavement 180 times more likely to be killed by a driver than by a cyclist.
Generally I find I can trust drivers to stay off the pavements, obey red lights and traffic signs, and not to drive down streets where they are not permitted. Cyclists cannot be trusted to do these things. I have yet to round a corner and encounter a car being driven at speed along the pavement in the opposite direction, but if it does happen I dare say I will find a new respect for your statistics.
Quotes given in the Independent's story indicate that commercial confidentiality is behind the NCA's decision simply to decide that Freedom of Information doesn't apply to it: 'We’re also going to increasingly rely on the relationship with the private sector. There’s a very real danger that being required to operate in line with freedom of information could fracture some of those relationships'.
I work for a university. Quite a lot of what we do involves 'relationships' with the private sector. Where that's the case and commercial confidentiality is an issue we have a clause covering it written into that particular contract. We certainly don't take the view that because some of our work involves commercial confidentiality we have the right to act as if it all does. Freedom of Information applies to us, and the burden of proof is on us to establish good reasons for it not to apply in specific cases. It should be the same for everybody.
It obviously suits the NCA that we should be left with no way of knowing what it is we're not allowed to know, nor of knowing (or challenging) the basis upon which we are not allowed to know it. The fact that a law enforcement body is talking in this way and seems to take it for granted that it's fine really ought to worry somebody, somewhere.
Says an AC, Generally they had a policy that stipulated that items that may harm others were banned. For the last few years a lot of what you listed, they simply didn't sell.
Oh, they had scruples! That's alright then. But I'm not at all clear why we should put any more trust in the good will of Silk Roaders and the like than we do in that of, say, the NSA.
Elsewhere in the Reg today are articles which talk about Finland, but do not call it 'Suomi', articles referencing China which do not refer to the place as 'Zhōngguó', reports concerning Germany which do not call it 'Deutschland', and numerous references to South Korea which refrain from calling it 'Daehan Minguk'. Why, then, do you insist on writing about 'Myanmar' instead of 'Burma'?
(you'll never convince me that either BMW don't fit indicators or that so many stop working 10 minutes after leaving the showroom)
That behaviour isn't limited to BMW drivers, sadly. Heaven knows how these people master their stratospherically-sophisticated phones when they can't even work out what the little lever sticking out of the stearing column is for. BMW drivers may be a particularly virulent instance of the phenomenon, however. It was a man in a BMW who castigated me yesterday for crossing a side street down which he intended to turn. He had given no indication of his intention, obviously expecting me to read his mind (assuming he had one).
Since when did 'anonymous' have the right to decide which political messages I can hear and which I can't? In my view the EDL is racist, thuggish, toxic and repellent in every way, but (so far at least) they are also a legal protest movement in a democratic society. It's not for a bunch of keyboard warriors hiding behind anonymity and rejecting any accountability themselves to act as self-righteous political censors.
So he's sat in the British Library, but trying to access a book on the MIT website, he didn't think about getting off his arse and fetching a real dead tree copy of the book off their shelves
Well ... he's sat at the British Library, at a computer with internet access, and the text of the play is available on the internet (dumb filters permitting). Perhaps he chose not to make a fetish of inconveniencing himself.
Actor has new role. Gosh whatever next. Coming to you straight from that section of the BBC News website front page devoted to shameless self-promotion. Just because the BBC think anything to do with Dr Who counts as internationally-important news doesn't mean the rest of us have to go along.
Oh, something out there that doesn't fit my worldview. Better insult the source ('right wing bozo') misrepresent the substance ('quibbles about a few points') and accuse the publication of taking kick-backs ('which three-letter agency paid...') and end with a sad little sneer. That'll learn 'em.
'I think any sane Board or CEO looking at the current media shitstorm would have made the same choice in those circumstances.'
Well of course, it is absolutely the job of any sane Board or CEO to be utterly craven in the face of whatever the media happens to be in a flap about.
On the face of it, this smacks of personnel department paranoia. This person has not as yet been through any form of due process, has not been found guilty of anything, has had no chance to put forward her side of the story. Some form of suspension while investigations continue would seem a more reasonable course of action.
I've been happily using a stylus-equipped Samsung tablet for months now. It's really relevant and useful for the work I do. But little did I know that putting a stylus on a tablet is AGAINST PROGRESS. I am so sorry to have stood in the way of history. Which way to the re-education camp?
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