Posts by John Smith 19

Re: But

"during the cold war , we (Nato) were cheerfully hacking into russian comm cables and leaching off data by the bucket load until it was given away by a traitor or the russians found the splice themselves."

Except these were actual opponents. The tapping of the Russian lines (in East Germany IIRC) was for military telephone lines, not just some random Russian telephone callers.

Which is exactly the target of this surveillance.

@Jiim 59

"Perhaps our enemies are off-net, like Bin Laden was ?"

Which rather suggests most of this effort is a waste of time, does it not?

Unless the "catching paedoterrrorists" claim is just an excuse for a massively out of control surveillance apparatus supported by politicians who were clearly much more terrified of a few Saudi Arabians than any of their constituents.

"Menwith Hill was being used to monitor trans-Atlantic traffic *decades* before 9/11"

FTFY

Re: ASSTR

"I guess it's a good job that alt.sex.stories text repository is not hosted in the UK then?"

True.

The last outing of the Obscene Pub's Act was IIRC down to a story posted to there from a UK citizen.

Politicians seem to have a huge problem with recognizing the difference between fantasy (as in "not real") with real life (as in "real")

Perhaps because so many of the things they claim are fantasies?

"I guess the Bible would be included"

I think so.

IIRC there a few fathers "begatting" with their daughters and if you do the math on some of the wives they'd definitely be classed as JB.

I think in some cases you're in Jerry Lee Lewis territory.

Re: WTF are 'paedophilic manuals'?

"Imagine if someone began issuing a manual of how to kill people, should possesion of that be banned? What about a story told in the first person about killing someone? A story containing a rape? A story where the lead character says something offensive or expresses a view about terrorism/paedophilic manuals that appears to support or "glorify" either?"

Why imagine?

At least one has been published (in the USA of course).

1st amendment rights. Not just for the causes you love, but also the causes you hate.

Yet Another TOTC law. I sense the hand of Ms Perry

Yet again.

I feel a short public information film coming on

Re: Agricultural robots?

"Don't forget to include:

Robots that can shout, "ger off my land!"

Robots that can wave a shotgun at hikers

Robots to say, "oooh aaarr, you 'ave twenty seconds to comply!""

You'll also need a sound file with "You townie folk don't understand our country ways."

Re: TRAITORS

"Not that I'm defending reading ordinary peoples' mail. But spying on foriegn governments is what we have intelligence services for. And I'm perfectly happy for that to include allies like Angela Merkel. The German government's position on various global and European issues is vital to British national interests. And no nation with a foreign intelligence service itself has any right to complain too much when it gets spied on. Well the game is, you complain loudly for a bit, for appearances, and maybe get some concessions, then go back to business as usual."

If only.

The whole point about this saga is it's indiscriminate spying on everyone, all the time.

That's not "targeted intelligence gathering," that's data fetishism.

Re: So what's really needed is a cheap way to do mass spectrometry on a *huge* scale.

"If you can find a 'trick' to do that, you will be releasing enough energy that it should be able to power the planet forever."

Well yes that's the problem.

@Big_Boomer

"Hydrogen by comparison is not at all scary, even at 1000's of PSI and -260°C. Methane/Propane are better but are still carbon polluters and thus are not "Green", merely greener. Personally, i think the solution to the problem is 2 fold. 1- More people work from home = less journeys. 2- Less people = less CO2. "

Wow.

Your really are clueless about how dangerous GH2 or LH2 really is. The USAF assess pressure vessels at 4000psi in Kg of TNT. GH2 tanks seem to need 5000psi for reasonable amounts of storage. Tanks storage is closer to -253c but will flash freeze anything (or anyone) within fairly close range before it explodes given that GH2's explosive range is around 4% to 96% GH2 in an air mix.

The point about the use of Methane or Propane is that they are renewable so they do not increase the level of Carbon in the atmosphere

@JDX

"When you ASSume, some ASS comes along and patronises you?"

Only if you're ignorant enough to deserve it.

@Squeezer

"If you think that fuel cells are going to win over batteries, where is the fuel (hydrogen?) going to come from?"

You assume he's talking about a straight H2 fuel cell.

You know what happens when you assume, right?