Posts by Jim 59 2047 publicly visible posts • joined 24 Jun 2009
Regarding the Mother Theresa/Gates thing - it's an interesting question. I guess the difference is that Gates enriched himself in the process, whereas Mother Theresa didn't. He gave to others after his own wealth was assured, she spent a life picking people up out of the gutter.
That sounds more depricating of Gates than I intended. He is to be hugely commended for his generosity, and only he can know what it feels like to give so much away.
Arbitrage and trading are just activities aimed at profiting from price fluctuations. They are socially useless activities with a zero sum gain. It sounds harsh, but a roadsweeper contributes more to worldwide society than the poshest of posh city traders. He delivers clean streets. They deliver, they contribute, nothing, net. They generate no wealth and add no value. And any tax they pay is just tax that was lost elsewhere.
@ Nigel Whitfield - yes, that is probably the book I was remembering. It's fair enough to say the tabloids exagerated, and that the book was provided to teachers and not children. But it was a children's book, not an adults', and it is hard to believe that that the council did not intend children to read the book or have teachers relay it to them, otherwise why put it in the aschool? At the time it was thought that this amounted to advocating a way of living to very young children. Hence the controvesial clause.
Much has been made of this clause ever since, and many on both sides of the argument fail to see the difference between promoting tolerance of something and promoting the thing itself. Leaders onboth sides have taken advantage of this confusion for political ends.
Like any concept, homosexuality can be spun or propagandized. The legislation was introduced in reponse to a few schools advocating homosexuality to very young children in a rather over-the-top way. One book in particular caused uproar IIRC, but memory fades.
I just realized Google's huge additional power to propagandize anything by adjusting their listings. Wow. I don't think they scuppered Soulter though. After all their listings contain web sites *far* more disturbing that his.
Atheism was a central part of Soviet ideology, as was the supression of any opposing viewpoint. Nazis were not religious. They had a policy of "cleansing" hyms and religious songs, removing from them any traditional Christian meaning. (I want to Google this but it might look dodgy searching on those terms from work!)
The Crusades, the Inquisition - I am pretty ignorant of these matters, but I agree the West has wronged the world many times, eg. the Irish famine of the 1840s, the Indian uprising, etc. etc. And the Church has done bad things in both ancient and modern times.
If the 1991 Iraq invasion felt like "the start of World War III", I guess you are lucky enough not to remember the USSR under Brezhnev circa 1980, Greenham Common, CND, "Protect and Survive", "Threads" ...shudder.
"...completely kickstarted the turn-based strategy (TBS) game genre". - Former players of Lasersquad , Rebelstar etc might have a different view. Good article though.
For the low cost of a GPS, it seems sensible to buy one and rest easy that ALL map data is right there in your glove box, immutable, forever, with no dependancy, no complication and no further cost. I am on about basic models without the posh "live" services. A fixed contract is still a cost - even if you use it for other things, you still have to spend the money.
If smartphones can store for example all european map data just like a GPS, that's cool too, I never knew that.
Nobody has mentioned the major problem of smartphone GPS, viz:
- the phone does not contain maps, it downlopads them as you go
- which places you under the anxiety of mobile coverage. How's that in Glen Coe ?
- and costs you money every mile.
On top of which, sometimes it is just better to have 2 devices for doing 2 different things in 2 different places.
Boot times of brand new, empty PCs were never the issue. The problem starts when you install a few things. A Windows PC takes longer to start every day, until users dread turing the thing on. Many non-expert users just assume their PC is slow becuase it is old. They buy a new one and are delighted how fast it boots. Some of them use a clean-up service with similar effect.
Windows' long boot time is largely down to the loading of an ever lengthening list of "zombie craplets", and the necessaity to have malware protection in the background. The OS isn't stable enough to undergo many hibernate/wake up sessions, it will always need rebooting now and again, so long boot up times will remain a feature even with this clever mod.
Things like this are better described as "innapropriate" rather then "offensive". The trouble is the ad sends mixed messages and could appear to be saying almost anything - maybe encouraging contempt for a UK minority, maybe just being funny as the wonk suggested, or maybe spitting on the faith of billions worldwide. Basically, it's all best avoided if we all want to live in harmony.
Presumably all the data is encrypted ? Otherwise who is going to be happy entrusting their "important office documents" to some random coorporation ?
I like these NAS devices in general, but its about time they came with built in encryption across the board. Even then, I would only backup to the cloud stuff like music, not my private files.
I agree desktop search (with privacy) is highly desirable. I use a perl script in the absence of better tools (on Linux) but it asn't a patch on proper indexing.
Backup tools could perhaps stand in here. They have to read every file periodically, so could build up a search index almost as a side product.
These "hackers" smash a load of windows, digitally speaking, and the Grauniad contacts them the same day and politely publishes their comments ? That's innapropriate. There was no angle here. It was mindless vandalism of other people's property. The fact it involved computers does not change that. Hey, Turkguvenligi, why don't you GET A JOB like the rest of us.
Contractors are independant businises, just like RBS. They could adopt a similar stance. Accept the offer, find a new contract, then give the client a similar ultimatum, with 12 hours to decide, ie. they must agree to a 10% price increase or else. However, this is a silly way to do business. RBS are being silly, and could suffer if they acquire a reputation for sharp practice. Ultimately, contractors will just see them as a risk and charge more to cover it.
If those behind-the-sofa pics are typical, it's clearly not worth buying. You would only have to get your hoover out to finish the job, and end up hoovering the whole lot by hand. I hope these robots improve eventually. I hate vacuuming and would pay $$$ for an effective robot pal.
- needs side brushes
- needs an extra narrow nozzle for some areas, so more intelligence
- needs to know the plan of the whole house. I'm not messing around with magnetic strips
- and much more, as Clarkson would say, "Power!"
It's no secret that women do better out of divorce than men. They get the man's family and his home, for a start, then part of his income for decades. I've never been married. But a divorced friend told me that divorce deals are *so* one sided that divorce actually becomes an attractive option for women, at least materially. He thinks it encourages divorce.
For women, a divorce means the loss of a husband only. For a man, it means the loss of a wife, loss of child contact (often orchestrated by the wife flouting court orders) and the ruination of every area of his life.
And married women bulge out due to "less time to exercise" ? Oh please. That assumes they were big athletes before marriage. You sure it is nothing to with liking cornettos and not having to go out and attract men every Saturday night ? Question is, why is it not the same for married blokes ?
One outdoor gadget I would recommend, though it is mighty expensive, is a pair of image stabalizing binoculars. I have a small pair of Canon 10x30s. Prior to a big holiday some years ago, I wandered into a shop intending to spend £60 or some cheap pocket binoculars. One look through these Canons and my attitude was recalibrated. Yours will be too. Basically you press a button and the image stops shaking. Never an impulse buyer, but these were a good buy. Google "cannon 10 x 30 is"
Makes sense somehow. We had the "microcomputer" after the mini, maybe the "microserver" is next. On another subject, perhaps the microserver will become the standard "always on" device in the home, replacing games boxes, media servers and the chunky servers enthusiasts have in their lofts. I have plenty-fast webserver at home, it takes only 4 watts. Plug computer, runs Debian.
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