* Posts by Lapun Mankimasta

192 publicly visible posts • joined 10 Oct 2013

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Russian hackers got Trump elected? Yeah, let's take a close look at that, says Obama

Lapun Mankimasta

Re: As far I can understand

"[...] Russians to do with that. What if it was the Chinese."

Russian Shmussians, Chinese, Shminese. It was the Nasal Epicures of Tau Ceti Three! I read it on the Interwebs! So there!!!

HMS Queen Lizzie to carry American jets and sail in support of US foreign policy

Lapun Mankimasta

Re: That Noise You Hear...

"...is Nelson spinning in his grave."

Any chance of gearing him up to the HMS QE's propellers? Just think, no radiation, no pollution!

Lapun Mankimasta

Re: Bad idea

"Hood was the culmination of a series of fundamentally pointless ships, starting with Jackie Fisher's bright idea of a big cruiser fast enough to catch enemy cruisers and armed with battleship guns to sink them."

The thing that scotched the battlecruiser idea was that they had battleship guns on cruiser armour. And having battleship guns, the blessed admirals wanted them in battle line. Against other ships armed with battleship guns which coincidentally also boasted battleship armour. Nobody cared about using them to intercept commerce-raider cruisers any more. They should've been decommissioned en masse following the Battle of Jutland, which pointed out this rather painfully ...

The German equivalent during the 1930s was the pocket battleship. As commerce raiders they made some sense, but the RN outmaneuvred the Graf Spee psychologically after the Battle of the River Plate.

Lapun Mankimasta

New Anthem?

Time to make this official?

Singing Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves

And Britons never, never, never shall be married

To a mermaid at the bottom of the deep blue sea

Since the other one - something about "slaves" I believe? - doesn't seem to apply ... whereas you can verify the number of Britons married to mermaids any time you take a wander down the road ...

Geo-boffins say 'quake lifted bits of New Zealand by 8 metres, moved at 3km/second

Lapun Mankimasta

Re: So how was New Zealand created?

"If the country is basically a mountain range created by the subduction of one plate under another tectonic plate"

It's worse than that. To copy something from Otago Uni geology,

http://www.otago.ac.nz/geology/research/structural-geology/alpine-fault/nz-tectonics.html

"To the northeast of New Zealand, and underneath North Island, the Pacific Plate is moving towards, and being subducted below the Australian Plate. To the south of New Zealand, and underneath Fiordland, the two plates are also moving toward each other but here the Australian Plate is being subducted under the Pacific Plate."

Quite a bit of torque involved, it would appear ... makes life interesting, more than a little!!!

BTW, has anyone actually recorded the sound of an earthquake? I want to transcribe it for a percussion piece I tried writing after the Christchurch Sept 4 2010 earthquake. TIA

Teen in the dock on terror apologist charge for naming Wi-Fi network 'Daesh 21'

Lapun Mankimasta

Re: Hmmm .... just speculatin' oh for pity's sakes!!!

Just call it TheTrumpOfDoom or TheLastTrump or something of the sort

Lapun Mankimasta

Re: FFS - "Daeshingthroughthesnow"

sorry, "snarlingasyougo" is already taken. Could try for "ïfsomeonegetsinyourway" or "shovethesoandso", and you'd just be in time for Christmas!!!

Latest F-35 bang seat* mods will stop them breaking pilots' necks, beams US

Lapun Mankimasta

Not so strange, after all

I thought an ejection seat that breaks the pilot's neck was an anti-terrorism measure. You know, a pilot ejecting over hostile territory can't be tortured - sorry, forcefully interrogated - for incriminating information such as the colour of their SO's underwear or the size of their wotsit if they are dead.

Actually it sounds like a rehash of the Imperial Wallies Back In London's view of the importance of parachutes in the First World War, or the importance of not having the bloody thing go up in smoke after it's been hit by incendaries during the Battle of Britain. WWI - don't be such a pussy. You're off to war to die, dontcha know? BoB - Rinse, repeat.

What next for the F-35 after Turkey's threats to turn its back on NATO?

Lapun Mankimasta

Re: They wanted us involved in their coup?

"I imagine the US or its allies do the same to get access to Soviet and Chinese fighters."

With both India and Pakistan buying up heavily in Soviet weaponry during the Cold War and both being in some sort of relationship to both the USSR and the USA, do you think that was ever a problem? Ditto the newly independent African states ... only a problem with the MiG 25 and MiG 31, IIRC.

Lapun Mankimasta

You do realise the irony of that statement don't you?

"The fact the the provos were largely funded by donations from people in the US for many years seems to have escaped you.."

Tchah! It's what people call "Special Relationship"!!! Having a special relationship means never having to say you're sorry when some of your citizens kill a member of the ruling family of your closest ally ... and narrowly miss killing the Prime Minister your President is so fond of!!! "Terrorism" is something only Arabs and Muslims do.Catholics and Protestants do something else - something to do with what's in the water, I think.

Blighty will have a whopping 24 F-35B jets by 2023 – MoD minister

Lapun Mankimasta

Way back in the day

in 1979, the Yanks were joking about being able to afford only one aircraft for all four services in 2001 - and swapping it between them on alternate days, with the US Marines getting it on weekends - if they behave.

2016 and it looks as though dreams/jokes can come true. I can just see the pilots of the RAF/RN tossing coins to see which one's going to fly the one serviceable plane for that day.

Oh, and immigrant-seeking missiles? Nah, the RN's going to strap politicians into bomb casings and drop them on anything that might contain a migrant or refugee ... first national level, then regional, then local, then they'll go for the party lists ...

Israeli cybersecurity boom 'sustainable', argues industry’s father

Lapun Mankimasta

Re: Israel's cybersecurity industry

Gee, every time somebody mentions Israel the citizens of LaLaLand turn up in force. (I had been previously unaware that one can be a citizen of LaLaLand and the United States of America, more fool me: you live and you learn.)

I think I could do a simple google search of every time some Israeli - secular or religious, it doesn't seem to matter - makes some statement - official or "off-the-record", it doesn't seem to matter - about Arabs as subhuman, with everything that goes together - massacres, whatnot - with the label of Untermensch - and you wouldn't bat an eyelid. Hell, I could even find the name of the Rabbi whose words sounded like a rewrite of Luther's infamous ravings on "the Jews" with "the Arabs" substituted - and you wouldn't notice anything wrong ... Of course, what Israel did to the Arab population of Mandatory Palestine in 1948 was judged rather harshly in the Nuremburg Trials when it was directed by the Third Reich against Europe's Jewish population in the early 1930s and -40s, but nobody noticed that, having been accustomed to regarding Arabs as Untermensch - subhuman - ever since the Crusades.

It should come as no surprise that the Palestinians don't particularly care for Israel. Judging from Netanyahu's actions over the past decade, he and his political party don't care for Israel either, and it's an even bet as to which - the House of 'King' Bibi Netanyahu or the Palestinians - will destroy Israel first. My bet is on 'King' Bibi.

Intelligence is defined in the zoological and anthropological sciences as considered adaption to circumstances. Human intelligence allows one to make multilingual plays on words. When I first started studying human language, I noticed that in the Semitic languages, 'W' and 'Y were interchanged. Feel free to call yourself a "Yank"'.

F-35s failed 'scramble test' because of buggy software

Lapun Mankimasta

Re: This is how the US is preserving its air superiority

"everything should be shuffled so that we end up with 4 services"

You need to work out the purpose of the various services and their machinery. Eg, what are naval ships used for? Troop transport? Guarding the shipping lanes? Intercepting an adversary's fleet? shipping? Likewise, the Army - are you aiming to prevent an opponent's army from invading? Or just keeping them on their toes? Air Force? What's its purpose? Pounding an enemy's industries ie strategic bombing? (Good luck when your adversary doesn't have any heavy industries.) Close air support? Maritime patrol? Maritime strike? Denial of air support ie air superiority?

The F-35 seems to me like someone never bothered to ask those questions of it, and in consequence no one bothered to answer them.

Lapun Mankimasta

And the reason/s why the f-35 can't be simply cancelled, as it should be?

Lockheed's got parts manufacturers in as many of the 50 states as it can, so effectively they've bought out Congress. And they've got most of the Western and West-aligned powers signed up to buy it.

Wish their product matched the standard of their advertising.

Jaron Lanier: Big Tech is worse than Big Oil

Lapun Mankimasta

posthumous copyright extensions

has anyone found out where the dead are banking their cheques? How do they get them?

Or are the corporations banking them themselves and pocketing the money?

And, copyright is supposed to return the investment of time and energy to the people doing the work, so they can continue producing it. Or at least according to the precise of copyright the US Constitution proffers. As far as I know, only Sir Arthur Conan Doyle ever wrote something from beyond the grave: there might6 be a few others like Cleopatra and the like, but they've all "produced" works well beyond their lifetime thus are not covered by copyright as such. Does Disney have a medium on staff to receive film scripts from Walt Disney himself?

I think Jaron Lanier's taking himself far too seriously.

Oz hackers safe to drop 0day at hacker cons, Wassenaar wonk says

Lapun Mankimasta

OT praps?

You know, the difference between a wonk and a wanker is "o" "a" "er" ....

Guarantees for each individual event sounds a lot like "classical" gangster politics to me. Thought we had something like the "rule of law". Apparently that's one of those comic superstitions us yokels have.

Russian boffins want to nuke asteroids

Lapun Mankimasta

Personally, I think the best way of getting around the on-coming asteroid is to spot it in time - nice idea, but we're talking about bozos, politicos, and whatnots here, who wouldn't know an emerging threat if it bit them in the bum, and then only when it becomes an electorate issue - send up a pair of Soyuz converted to carry reasonably high-powered lasers and several months of thrust, have one behind and in one front of the asteroid, and ablate enough off the asteroid to change its orbit significantly.

Could also be used to capture said asteroid and mine it.

Only works when politicos aren't bozos, but that's a mighty big ask.

George Bush naked selfie hacker Guccifer gets his day in US court

Lapun Mankimasta

"Mr. Lazăr violated the privacy of his victims and thought he could hide behind the anonymity of the Internet," said US Attorney Dana Boente of the Eastern District of Virginia. unquote

Umm, now didn't he get the memo? The one that stated there is no such thing as privacy on the Internet, and so on and so forth? The one that the NSA, the FBI, and the rest are pushing like crazy?

Didn't think so.

Oz uni in right royal 'indigenous' lingo rumpus

Lapun Mankimasta

Re: We never invaded anywhere, we civilised

You're working down the quarry as a powder-monkey's mate

With your jelly and your fuses and it's time to detonate

But you find you've left your crimping pliers down beside the gate -

Don't worry mate, she'll be right

She'll be right, mate, she'll be right

Don't worry mate, she'll be right

Shove the det. in underneath, you can crimp it with your teeth,

Don't worry, mate, she'll be ....

Lapun Mankimasta

Political correctness Re: It's a fair cop

You should try raising the subject in some quarters. "Political correctness" is nothing compared to the willful ignorant blindness and crude and malicious contempt displayed by those shouting down "political correctness".

I've been living in New Zealand for a fair few years, and I can say from first-hand experience, that if settling Maori grievances handn't been made a bipartisan matter for all parties to deal with, it would not have been such a relatively smooth path. Sure there are still issues, but because the issues have been openly discussed for the last twenty odd years and resolved in most cases, even the outstanding issues aren't a threat any more, except to a set of right-wing (alt ring-worm) white supremecists.

Lapun Mankimasta
Joke

Re: You say tomato

Lichtenstein - a full-on naval invasion, obviously. Ditto Bolivia and Mongolia. And Chad. And the Central African Republic.

Just because we'd have to disassemble the ships to get them there, and they might not have any large bodies of water when we get there, shouldn't stop us. We love a challenge, just as the world likes a laugh.

Anyone know of any large-enough trucking companies ready and willing to shift the disassembled Royal Navy overland to Lichtenstein? And navvies willing (and dumb) enough to disassemble and re-assemble the ships (and potentially the crew - cheaper that way)? The royalties for such a reality TV invasion would be in the billions!!!

Cyberthreat: How to respond...and when

Lapun Mankimasta

Any thought given to the picture? It's a P-51 Mustang shooting down a P-86 Sabre. Blue-on-blue.

Maybe that's the whole point of intelligent cybersecurity, because feet are the favourite targets, after all. Particularly once they have been inserted into one's own mouth. It's the only way to get a hundred-percent strike rate, and that is something very much appreciated by head office.

And speaking of "all hands on deck", are feet included?

"All hands on deck! All feet as well!" the captain loudly roared.

"Run up the rigging quick and throw the maindeck overboard!"

"Go fetch the lifebelts out of hock and save yourselves," said he

"And as I have no one to love me, you can leave your wives with me."

Microsoft SQL Server for Linux is a brilliant and logical idea

Lapun Mankimasta

had to happen

All it needed was to see Monkey Boy off the premises. It doesn't surprise me in the least. And yes, I expect it is Azure-focused. Frankly, MS SQLServer's been one of the more secure of all of Microsoft's product lines. I half-expected that division to do a management buy-out if Monkey Boy had hung in there for longer. It can survive on its own: now it's in theory free from its "Siamese Twinnage" to MS Windows, it can grow even faster.

Speaking of alternative heavy-weight SQL server DBMSes, I'm surprised no one's mentioned Ingres, to wit:

https://www.openhub.net/p/ingres

http://esd.actian.com/product/Community_Projects/Ingres_Database

It used to be one of the "Enterprise" contenders. And it comes with a good number of the goodies people want.

Bruce Schneier: We're sleepwalking towards digital disaster and are too dumb to stop

Lapun Mankimasta

Re: Regulating technology?

For a start we could have it explicitly acknowledged in legislation and made part of the human rights treaties that personal data is a personal possession and private property of the data's originator. And may only be used for the purposes beyond that for which it was collected, if that person gives fuly-informed permission in writing, with a legal representative's witnessing. And the written permission and the application for use must be in words and expressions fully understood in their entirety by the data's originator.

Lapun Mankimasta

Re: another terrorist attack we might have to get rid of the constitution

So? If I don't get the milk on my cornflakes exactly the right temperature and colour, we WILL have to get rid of the constipation - oops, I meant constitution. Terrorist attacks are nothing compared to getting milk on cornflakes exactly right. Even Silicone Valley agrees - a decade ago there was an ad on Slashdot with a couple of Silicone Valleyites complaining about "Warm Balls" - oops, that's meant to read "Warm Bawls" ... truly tragic, judging from their expressions!

Computer Science grads still finding it hard to get a job

Lapun Mankimasta

Re: The point is not to match skills: It's attitude

"Interviewing for attitude isn't as easy as interviewing for skills but it can be done and when you're a candidate it's often your responsibility to "sell" your attitude."

And what precisely is meant by "attitude"? We are talking about computer science here. Computer science is notoriously focused on precise definitions - as for that matter, most of the other sciences, including psychology, which "human resources" is apparently a subset of. Reading this sort of comment - which does not specify "attitude" makes me understand why "human resources" is viewed with such disdain by real research psychologists - it's the lazy man's psychology, almost pop psychology.

"Pre-graduate education is currently largely mired in the process of being taught to pass an exam which doesn't give the Universities much to work with and is a perpetual gripe for them. Many Professors will complain that the first year of University is now wasted having to teach students how to learn and often to teach the basics of the subject they managed to pass exams for."

And what happens when you have the knowledge - which you've acquired through knowing how to learn - and you don't know the first thing about passing exams?

You're a bad fit for both academia - too bolshy an attitude, since you've gone ahead and learnt without "proper" guidance and time constraints ie, you've done a full years work in six weeks - and you've clearly shown you're unreliable as an employee since you've taken an initiative that the Duly Constipated Authorities refuse to recognize.

It's the Management Man in the Mirror Problem, no one else's.

Lapun Mankimasta

Man in the mirror confesses to being the problem

" "There is not enough information available on what it is employers think they want. Cloud computing, data analytics, are areas of huge demand but the feeling is there still not enough supply there," he said. "

Slashdot used to have a standing joke about the job ad for people with five years skill using a language that hadn't been out for more than three, if even that.

Face it, employers have been riding on everybody's backs for the past few decades with the assumption that they know what they are on about, when it's painfully obvious from the standing joke above, that they don't know anything. At All.

Windows 10 will now automatically download and install on PCs

Lapun Mankimasta

For what it's wo5rth, I decided to see what the fuss was all about, and am now downloading the installation iso. That way I can say quite truthfully, I've gone the extra mile ... Microsoft can't fault me for that, can they? (The polite word is "gullibility" but I don't mind ... :)

I do wish I could get ahold of a Windows 8.1 iso, though, so that I can wipe the current installation with Sabayon or something of that sort and run MSWin 8.1 in a virtual machine for those things that Linux still can't do as well as MSWindows ...

BTW, do you think now is a good time to register Microsoft Widnows 3.1?

Four Boys' Own style World War Two heroes to fire your imagination

Lapun Mankimasta

Re: Not sure if being British is a requirement, but ...

For what very little it is worth, you must remember that the Statute of Westminster 1931

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo5/22-23/4/contents

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Westminster_1931

had not yet been adopted in New Zealand and thus New Zealand was not formally independent from the United Kingdom at the time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statute_of_Westminster_Adoption_Act_1947

http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/statute-of-westminster-passed-confirming-nz-autonomy

Charles Upham would've seen himself as first a British subject and then a New Zealander.

So while he was neither Britain-born nor Britain-domiciled, he was technically British. And thus he can be accurately included in this little bit of history.

(Passing this little bit of legislation was a bit of a requirement to join in the United Nations on a proper basis - otherwise, with the UK being able to prevent the Dominions' legislatures from passing legislation, they would not have been recognized as fully-independent members of the UN - rather like the Soviet Union's Belorus and Ukraine memberships. :)

Bigger than Safe Harbor: Microsoft prez vows to take down US gov in data protection lawsuit

Lapun Mankimasta

First Datum: Customers'data

What I want Microsoft to do is establish as a general rule that any given company does not and never can "öwn" its customers' data. It is only and can only be, a custodian of that data, and to the degree and extent that it makes a profit from those customers' data, that is a liability that is unregistered - that is, those customers own the company to that degree and to that extent.

This can be established by answering the simple question: what does a finance company do for example, when you apply for finance? Require you to update them on changes of address. And what would happen if a company didn't bother with following its customers like that, and instead made up its own data? What do we call a company that is busy making up its own data from whole cloth?

And in consequence, the only situations where it is liable to pass that data on, are matters of public safety and criminal connection. The rest of it, the government must apply to each and every individual concerned using the time-tested special warrant method delivered by hand to said individual that has worked so well, for access to that data.

Comet halo theory for flickering 'alien megastructure' star fails

Lapun Mankimasta

Slartibartfast and Zaphod Beeblebrox playing snooker with planets?

Aliens mining a superjovian for materials sufficient to build a Dyson sphere by dropping it into a close-enough orbit that it boils itself to pieces?

We tried using Windows 10 for real work and ... oh, the horror

Lapun Mankimasta

"Windows 8.1 is the best OS Microsoft have ever made despite what the troglodytes say.""

Hmmm ... MS Windows 8.1 is the only Windows release I know of that regularly switches focus away from the active window, in spite of whatever activity you are pursuing in said open window.

I wasn't previously aware that pissing off your customers was ranked so highly by Microsoft.

Want to go green like Apple, but don't have billions in the bank?

Lapun Mankimasta

Frankly, putting increasing efficiency together with using renewables when and where possible is the long-term solution.

That said, how many companies building motherboards and/or cases for rackable servers have engineers who understand elementary aerodynamics? Elementary thermodynamics? Cold aisle plus hot aisle, so the air and the heat differential does more work than the fans, would seem to be elementary. Even better if the cases and the building is designed to speed cold air through the hot parts - someone called Bernoulli and something called venturi IIRC - look it up. That way you can run the hot parts as hot as you like. I think they call that a static ram jet.

US Navy's LOCUST DRONE CANNON is like death SWARMED up

Lapun Mankimasta

There's a general rule: a great power going downhill will have a special friend that it shares a lot of its goodies with. In order to get in good with the up-and-coming great power set to replace the old one, the special friend will share the goodies with the up-and-comer. What the up-and-comer does with those goodies is anyone's guess.

The current great power is the US, the special friend is Israel, the up-and-comer is China. It's a fair bet that the Israelis already have passed this on to the Chinese; it's a fair bet that the Chinese have already passed it on to the Iranians - because, after all, one of the flow-on effects of the 2003 Iraqi War debacle was to anoint Iran as the resident power of the Persian Gulf, and in order to maintain an uninterrupted steady flow of energy products from the Persian Gulf while everything gets retooled for renewables, the Iranians need strong defenses.

So at a guess, I'd say the Iranians are indeed taking note. I'd also guess they'll soon show up in Iranian hands in the fight against the "Islamic State".

Want to find LOVE online? Make sure your name is high up in the alphabet

Lapun Mankimasta

Re: "Your plastic pal who's fun2bwith"

Careful there! They're now revising the female specification to include composite construction, so the chances are, you may very well end up with a "Plastic pal who's fun2bwith" at your local.

:( first it's boats and aircraft, then cars, now it's women ... what are they trying to tell us? :)

Lapun Mankimasta

Re: Forty years of feminism

"Presumably you haven't heard what 'key points' men discuss about female potential dates?"

Whether or not they've still got stones in them? Or if they're still on the date palms?

Lapun Mankimasta

Wrong finger

wrong finger in the picture - it should be the middle finger.

If I'd had no sisters, how more romantic I'd be

But my sisters

Were such little blisters

That all women now are sisters to me.

Jaguar F-Type: A beautiful British thoroughbred

Lapun Mankimasta

Dunno how it happened but I read the second title line as "Evoking the spirit of Malcom X" and wondered how a sixties Black American radical civil rights campaigner inspired Jaguar ... alas, it is not so!!!

Nice car, but I'm still deeply in love with the Jaguar E-Type ...

TITANIC: Nuclear SUBMARINE cruising 'Sea of KRAKENS' may be FOUND ON icy MOON

Lapun Mankimasta

space plane

I got to thinking, why the (censored) don't they design the apace plane that lands the sub, to float on the water, put on some (relatively) minor sensors, build in a humungous aerial, and use it as the sub-to-Earth relay station? That way you get to collect more info, get an extra sensor set, and get an aerial that's got the range to pass serious detail back to Earth.

ALIENS are surely AMONG US: Average star has TWO potentially Earth-like worlds

Lapun Mankimasta

Re: Goldilocks? @ravenviz

It's actually Girldie Larks and the Forebears, according to Afferbeck Lauder: Father Behr, Mother Behr, Baby Behr and Cammom Behr. Girldie Larks was a juvile dinquent tea nature, whose career in crime was ended when Cammom Behr cut out her heart and threw it down a well. It's a very popular Furry Tile.

20 years on: The satirist's satirist Peter Cook remembered

Lapun Mankimasta

"However, Cook was quite the visionary. How long before we actually have a reality TV show called 'Celebrity Suicides'?"

YES!!! Exactly what the world needs! And "Blow Your Tits Off" too! I can't wait until the US Presidency is decided by which presidential candidate's tits go highest!

FBI fingering Norks for Sony hack: The TRUTH – by the NSA's spyboss

Lapun Mankimasta

" "I don't think it's realistic" for private companies "to deal with [cyberattacks] totally by themselves," he said."

Hey, where did all the hype about deregulation go? During the hyper-hype on deregulation during the eighties and since then, the claim has been made that business should be allowed to regulate itself. The corolary of that is, let the buggers sink or swim. Don't hold them up.

So much for that theory. No athiests in foxholes, as the saying goes, and they'll be around to kneecap you the instance you don't cough up ....

" Rogers added that the NSA would be around to help with similar investigations in the future. "

Sony deserves it bigtime. I would say they deserve all the help they can get; as we expect to be titllated by further leaks, floods, and tsunamis of data in the future.

Open Source's 2014: MS 'cancer' embrace, NASDAQ listings and a quiet dog

Lapun Mankimasta

I won't be completely happy with Microsoft until Microsoft opens its (obsolete) OS trees under the GPL 3 or something very similar, with similar patent provisions, that effectively put to death its long-standing "software patent" threats against Linux. (and gets IBM to do the same for OS/2 and HP with the VAX VMS source trees) thus putting to rest one long and unproductive waste of time ...

But in the meantime, I'm pleased I can play with C# without worrying about some nebulous lawsuit to punish me for succeeding with it and thus competing with Microsoft.

US Navy's LASER CANNON WARSHIP: USS Ponce sent to Gulf

Lapun Mankimasta

Countermeasures

anything that can deflect the beam

anything that can diffuse the beam

anything that can overwhelm the targeting

anything that can make the laser overheat

location - on the sea

targets - other ships, boats, aircraft

sending a flood of small drones at it, loaded with marbles and smoke bombs should work a treat. then, once the air inbetween has been "tainted" with airborne glass globules and smoke, you send in even more, and if everything goes to plan, the laser overheats trying to penetrate the airborne mist it has itself created.

Lapun Mankimasta

Re: Ponce

Ahoy scurvies

The cabin boy was Flipper

He was a fuckin' nipper

He stuffed his arse with broken glass

And circumcised the skipper

Lapun Mankimasta

A man after my own heart

with a knife and fork and a spot of worcestershire sauce

Did North Korean hackers nobble Sony Pictures?

Lapun Mankimasta

Son of Stuxnet?

First thought of mine. Stuxnet's out there, source code for it's available if you've got the cash, and there's a company out there's painted a target on its back ... rootkit's just the icing on the cake, the cream on the strawberries (or manure, if that's what you like) ...

What We Do In The Shadows? Laugh ourselves silly, mostly

Lapun Mankimasta

Werewolves are a lot of fun on their loansome ownsome:

How Fluffy Ruined My Reputation

http://www.antisf.com/the-stories/how-fluffy-ruined-my-reputation

being another example of how Kiwis are not renowned for taking too much too seriously ... can't blame 'em

BAE points electromagnetic projectile at US Army

Lapun Mankimasta

Sounds like the Kadinka-Donka machine

There was a rich and not altogether intelligent young man getting bored with his life of excessive privilege. One day while driving at random through the Peruvian Andes, he noticed a sign by the side of the road. It said "Kadinka-Donka Machines Our Speciality".

So he went along the little side road the sign pointed down, until he came to a small factory with "Kadinka-Donka Machine Manufacturer" on the roof.

"I've seen the sign," he explained to the proprietor, "but I've never heard of Kadinka-Donka Machines before, and I don't have one. I'd like to order one."

"Fine. If you could make a down payment of about three million, we'll get to work. Come and see us in a couple of years time."

In a couple of years he was back. The proprietor had a tale of woe. "Our costs had risen, and money has suffered inflation, we need an extra ten million. Come back in another couple of years."

In another couple of years he was back. Again, it was explained that components had vanished, availability of certain things, etc, etc, etc. So he put down another twenty million, and went away.

http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Rec/rec.arts.sf.science/2005-11/msg00176.html

HUGE SHARK as big as a WWII SUBMARINE died out, allowing whales to exist

Lapun Mankimasta

Re: Correlation does not prove causation.

I'd be inclined to argue that the whales outcompeted the megaladons for medium to large size fisheries, which would've formed a larger proportion of the shark's diet than seems to be acknowledged here. And the warmbloodedness versus the coldbloodness thing does enter in, once the polar oceans cooled as they did. That would've been a major pair of sanctuaries for breeding. Just my 0.02c worth, which is probably inflation, anyways ...

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