Posts by Marvin the Martian

Newsflash: RAPTURE HAPPENED -- very few Christians affected.

It's just that the number of eligible Christians has been almost zero.

Or alternatively,

They could make the system more assertive. Add a code line like:

if(EnterCrossing && HasPriority) then (SoundHorn, FlashHeadlights, RevEngine) else (brake);

Or having a PPC G4/G5

Having a pre-2006 Mac, therefore not being allowed to go to FF4.

Luckily Facebook has replaced eBay which replaced Amazon as the web world wonder of today.

Otherwise we'd be reading about little "Make-Offer" or "OneClick"/"Goto-Checkout".

Name is removed.

Now the rest of the store and it's all tidy.

But if Ovi means door, what does Nokia mean? [Wikipedia claims "soot marten", which at least describe most phones' colour.]

Agree: too similar.

It's not like we haven't seen other logos evolve from 2D to 3D (say: Apple), from a stylized outline to a semi-transparent beveled thing with dropshadows and the whole lot.

Vaguely remembering the SE logo (round, poisonous green inside a white flat ball), the Clearwire looks like a freshened-up version --- only with the SE in front of you, you remember that it's a spiral which the CW doesn't have.

"Easier explanation"

You say that whatever's common to all operations must have been brought by the American?

Hm: All operations have featured (presumed) enemies, so the Americans must have brought them? Doesn't really ring true. Inverting the statement -- anything that's used only in some operations isn't brought -- is equally weak.

Nope, no part of the statement seems robust. It's of the "where's smoke there's fire" variety, and after two smoke-filled hours at an attempted BBQ this weekend I can guarantee you that there may be no charcoal-heating fire at all regardless of smoke quantity.

It's the glass-half-full-or-half-empty debate.

The subtitle could have alternatively read "Punishments are high enough, but software prices are too high".

Given that the BSA is a MS front, this version seems quite right to me: rather than double the punishment, just halve the prices and keep the punishments at the same level.

So your post can be summed up as

I for one welcome our stoned, drunken, IPstealing, fraudulent new immigrants?

Evolution as always through selection -- a bit too harsh here.

Look at the atlantic cod: they're quickly evolving towards being small fishes, as the big ones keep getting caught (so those that mature at a "subadult" size are the only ones reproducing).

That kind of selection pressure is a bit too high here: if all your orientation, communication and navigation systems are jammed, group animals cannot coordinate anymore to e.g. move towards deserted corners. [Luckily there's more deserted corners in agricultural areas so this kind of news gives hope that well-chosen locations stop honeybees from going extinct --- but protecting your hives from theft with a wifi webcam is now ruled out!]

Urban beekeepers are up for extinction though (anyway a recent fad).

Ginger Bashing Resort

This sounds like a good alternative to Center Parks and Club Med.

Generalize this!

Gloves reminding you to cut your nails, shoes warning to look right or left (depending on the country you are), and toothpaste telling the correct pronunciation of "vitamin".

And in another headliner from Correlation Today Magazine:

Some things up over the last decade are:

-- stock index

-- world population

-- price of metals

-- price of medicine

-- broadband speed

-- broadband penetration

-- drug use

-- global surface temperatures

Feel free to make links between any two or more, and write the rest of the article.

Conservation methodology keeps changing!

If you consider british conservation officers regulating listed houses: a decade or so ago, you had to fill all the gaps in fake-old ('as similar as possible' giving horrible mock-Tudor) but now you either may not touch it or you have to make it clearly distinct --- read all glass + shiny metal onto exposed old brick. Exactly as Apple likes to do (e.g. Regent St.).

So it depends a bit at what stage of evolution the Dutch conservation officers are.

My money was on Surrey...

...as I had the misfortune of passing through Redhill. But other parts clearly aren't.

So I think it's like London, Brokenshire doesn't coincide with traditional county boundaries, and comprises sizeable bits of Essex, Surrey, Wiltshire and so on. It's definitely home counties.

With a Baroness following a Lord at that post?

It's hardly expected to be an patriotic idealist's meritocratic paradise.

None of the numbers in the article add up.

To note: "downloading 30k songs", "8000 tracks", "24000 karaoke songs", "£54k" and "79p per track" --- it just doesn't fit in any way. The only possible way the track numbers fit, is if almost every "track" is present in both original and 3 different karaoke versions.

And the price is even further off: even if all 30k are "different" (so not "8000tracks"), then at 54k that's £1.80 per track. Go to HMV and you find that all non-brand-new cd's come at two-for-£10, each about 12 tracks on average, or £0.42 per track.

"If a student changes the course of history, he's usually failing his exams."

Indeed pure myth. AFAIK the salt/carthage myth was made up by a 19th century PhD student, but it was in analogy to various middle eastern traditions (stories? myths?) about salting conquered terrain.

The economics just don't add up: salt was an expensive enough commodity, and to damage at great cost a terrain you've just acquired is doubly stupid. Plus salt is rather water-soluble, eh, so this is damage rather quickly washed away.

After the first toxic shock of saltwater + pollution washing on, the fertility of the terrain may actually go up, from all the nutrients and silt washed on.

As sponsored by Plasterers-R-Us.

You know how grubby your walls are going to be, from sweaty/grubby/grease-stained/chili-smeared/etc mitts? With every housemember making their own stain at their respective handheight?

It would make an automated cat-detector slightly easier to build than the famous one that denies entry to cats-carrying-fresh-kills, but that's about it.

Teh Rulez

At our home we play by King James Rules; if the word was good enough for Jesus then it's good enuff for us.

Best ad to make???

Quite funny, so good in that sense. For shifting product? A big fail! And an advert's primary task is shifting product, or building brand loyalty...

For gaming, the obvious discussion is not Apple (nor Linux) vs Windows, but console vs desktop... so this proposed ad completely misses the point.

I think you could improve it by showing the PC's an /occasional/ gamer, where gaming is part of his real life -- he can look guilty and minimize the game to reveal daily stuff open (facebook, financial planner, something work related). And maybe have a woman instead of a man.

----

For starters, nobody reading this site is target audience of the lame advert shown.

As in the Mac vs PC ads, the PC was the "everyman" and the mac more "elitist" [where the unmentioned pc-elite would buy a top-of-the-line Lenovo or Toshiba for the same or more as the mac equivalent], but here we're supposed to empathise with someone who's surprized at LCD-screens (presumably she's been thinking they're tv-only?!).

It's quite a leap of the imagination, such empathy. I can't really pull it off, after 7min trying.

Popes/RC

Your remotely-controlled pope scared me for a moment.

@Doms

Which part of "the British Library" you cannot understand? Note "the", not "a".

You kind of corroborate the argument, so try again.

Also,

Barack is a very smart lawyer, he'd have done it the lawyerly way (i.e., with a super-injunction).

Probably the CIA would implement it for him --- so you wouldn't even know there's an injunction, your keyboard would just refuse to type the statements concerned.

France, and Belgium.

Belgium is infested with the Azerty affliction too... At my Uni different pc rooms had different keyboard layouts, very annoying as it didn't let you change layout for obvious vandalism reasons.

Looking under the hood: why?

There is no actual advantage in understanding the underlying mechanics/electronics, in daily life. Yes, it makes you a more rounded person and I'd prefer to work with people with such an attitude to their surroundings, but no actual advantage.

In analogy, you do not learn in driving school how an engine actually works, because there's no advantage. When you break down you break down, and a salvage truck will have to come; there are almost no user-replaceable parts left on modern engines; any amateur will need expensive diagnostic kit (which works in absolutely unknown black-box fashion) to read error codes and tweak injection settings. Yes some knowledge will help you to detect the worst BS told by mechanics, or whether a combination of warning signs are worrying, but that's when things are already going pear-shaped and you anyway need professional intervention.

Especially in this context, the advantage isn't really there. Yes, tens of thousands would benefit from this barebones device, as opposed to the millions who will need office skills for office work. Current high school teaching doesn't let much (or: any?) time for specialist work for the general pupil. Trying to teach such things will only spook the majority and reinforce the blackbox attitude.

@ Mikel the troll

Here, have a snack:

"Intrigueing, mr. burglar, howzat you knew I'd be out for 45min on my twice-weekly run?"

Stealth sneaking in is their main weapon.

Surprise is their main weapon, and excellent combat training. That, and an almost fanatical devotion to the US of A.

That's why nobody ever expects them.

Reliable weather reports.

It's not like a storm over land would have left them intact --- they were giant sitting ducks essentially. They were supposed to be over sea so that's where the storms found them.

And contrary to popular opinion, weather reports have actually become more reliable, so storm avoidance was extra hard.

Expect marketers to say trivial things.

"not $188 of parts, but a dream, promises of what you can do". Yeah, duh!

You walk into a car showroom to ask for about $1500 of sheet metal plus bits and bobs?

Go to a website thinking you're spending 2ct/h on electricity?

So mentioning function over building blocks is this "enchanting" thing? Colour me unenthused.

Apple changing foundry ever?

Inconceivable!

Missing collars

Used to have the same problem (with worried old ladies phoning when they find them --- but myself often in another country.

I've found that nylon tie-wraps around the end helps. So you tie down the sticking-out end bit with one or two nylon binding ties, then chopping their tails off. Of course you make sure there is the elastic safety-bit elsewhere. The current one has been on for over a year now, the first four lasted a month all together.

"the goal is to obtain the feeling of kissing."

Poor guy. It hasn't worked out with the usual facebook/online-ads/etc for him, so instead he builds a robot to finally experience that elusive kissing thing? The mind boggles.

"Large organisations" like the local PD?

A three men + dog police station is not really a large organisation. Especially as their daily task is stopping robbers and apprehending littering teenagers; IT management just creeps in.

You not having a life and spending your time off from WoW by portscanning and feelin' leet doesn't really hold much water.

GSM data??

It's wild extrapolation day if you're going to find out from those what you are after -- not the place with the most cars, but the place with the most TOO FAST cars; actually those with the most cars that are much faster than allowed.

It's thursday!

Thursday's the new Friday.

"worldwide" instead of "US"

You mean there's civilisation outside of the blessed US of A? Beyond Alaska?!

The mind boggles.

Crockford not at MS

But for how long?

Fence?

We prefer to call it a cordon sanitaire.

/on the maps it seems the boys from Lagos have duped you into a visit? To pick up that fortune from Muammar's wife or so?