* Posts by cyborg

270 publicly visible posts • joined 2 Feb 2010

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OkCupid falls out of love with 'anti-gay' Firefox, tells people to see other browsers

cyborg
Holmes

Re: Rehabilitation

"In the end, the government really doesn't care and the Constitution doesn't come into play."

Short version: Didn't say they did.

cyborg
FAIL

Re: Rehabilitation

"Hardly surprising, since critical thinking doesn't appear to be your strong suit."

Oh this should be good.

"It hardly takes an expert phenomenologist to observe a difference between holding and expressing an opinion. Though effective policing of the mind has been limited at best, up to the present day, that hasn't prevented many jurisdictions from attempting to outlaw the former separately from the latter, or simply let the latter serve as evidence of the former."

Irrelevance not addressing anything.

"The US Constitution and its amendments, concerned as they are with delimiting the powers of the state (that is, the Union and the several States), generally do not deal with matters inaccessible to government practice. Thus the First Amendment makes no statement about holding opinions."

Irrelevant pedantry only a lawyer would care about. I've already stated that it is perfectly reasonable to a reasonable person - which doesn't appear to be your strong suit - that the context would allow for these things to be interchangeable especially when an expression of opinion *has* occurred.

In other words if you'd like to reduce your throbbing vein of pedantry on your forehead just read "speech" instead of "opinion" and then you can calm down.

You seem to have a problem with reading things written. Perhaps deal with that first before trying to feel superior in your "thinking".

"I'll skip past the naive intentionalism - there's no force to your argument even if it were an adequate model of the relationship between discourse and state of mind."

My argument is simply that you're making an argument for the hell of it. You've provided another sentence to justify that.

"No one's right to political expression has been compromised in the slightest."

I never said it was.

Please attempt to read words as written. The point of the First Amendment is clearly to protect political opinion/speech/enaction - whatever. You have made it up in your own mind that I have said:

* Anyone was actually being compromised here

* The US government is involved in this case

The reason for the invocation would be obvious if you weren't determined to be an ass. That the US government isn't the one trying to shut down the dialog doesn't invalidate the idea that perhaps the people of the country should have a particular attitude to this based upon the constitution created for their country.

But please - if it makes you feel superior to a random person on the Internet do continue with irrelevancies only a lawyer would care about to a statement never uttered. Perhaps call into question whether I have any sexually transmitted diseases or suggest I have the brainpan of a of stage coach tilter. Big up your chest and thump it. Come on - you're a superior individual. You can do better than a lame ad hom right out the box. Or not.

So let me make this quite clear again: I never said nor implied the US government was doing anything - you made that up in your own head. That's your problem: critical reading fail.

K THX BYE.

cyborg
Flame

Re: Rehabilitation

"The First Amendment does prohibit the Federal Government from imposing prior restraint on the freedoms of speech and of the press, among other things. That's rather different from "protect[ing]" some mythical right to "hav[e] a political opinion"."

I don't really see how unless you want to be strangely pedantic and argue it's possible to have an opinion banned that you can nonetheless freely speak. Or even stranger argue that it's possible to freely speak as long as you don't hold that speech as your opinion. Clearly unless you're a lawyer prone to perverting language for no reason it's entirely sensible to read "speech" and "opinion" as basically synomous in that if you're allowed to speak something then unless thoughtcrime is to be prosecuted the opinion of the speaker as to that speech may be reasonable assumed from be what it is from the content of that speech; but even if it is not it's not relevant.

Besides protecting political opinons/ideas - whatever - is entirely the point. It's clearly not about protecting the right to vocalise words in general as some physical action - it's entirely about the Government of the United States of the moment not being able to ban speech it has decided it doesn't like.

Not that any of this is relevant in particular to myself not being under the protection of that Constitution so whatever - lawyer away.

cyborg
Boffin

Re: Rehabilitation

Yes, they can do what they like.

The problem is the fundamental attitude of why: innuendo, not fact. That's the difference especially when the guy is not coming out thumping a Bible telling the queers to shut up but is instead trying to reconcile.

You see people who really hold fast to a particular belief generally don't shut-up just because someone else told them it makes them feel bad because they wouldn't care. But it doesn't look like the people taking issue with this are interested in thinking - the decision has been made and the non-person is to be persecuted.

cyborg
Mushroom

Re: Rehabilitation

No, it's McCarthyism to see Reds under the beds everywhere and to prosecute thoughtcrimes.

Last I checked having a political opinion was protected under the United States constitution; these Social Justice Warriors TM aren't interested in anything as mundane as facts or sensible debate though. Nope. Out come the torches and pitchforks and out go the brains. At this point I think he could actually get married to a man and it wouldn't stop this crusade.

Google asks April Fools: Want a job? Be our 'Pokemon Master'

cyborg
Facepalm

*Faints*

A wild GOOGLE appears.

Brit game devs WILL get tax relief for, er, EastEnders Game and Legend of Slough

cyborg
Mushroom

Re: Sim Scotland

I assume one of the disaster scenarios is all the whisky stills exploding.

cyborg
Thumb Up

Re: grand theft auto -Lambeth?

Given the scope of the latest titles I really don't think a full reproduction of London would be technically unfeasable.

cyborg
Trollface

Re: Eastenders Game

Coronation Street game options:

*) Mini Cab simulator - can you scrape by on the meager takings from the mini cab? Manage your money so you have enough to enjoy in the Rovers - but don't have too much or you won't be able to drive!

*) Factory Simulator - I'm seeing this like Skool Daze where you try to do as little work as possible, gossip - and go to the Rovers.

*) Find the Cat - where is that ginger tabby? Think Where's Waldo but wandering around Corrie.

cyborg
Trollface

Eastenders Game

Clearly either:

*) Pub management simulator - try to keep ownership of The Vic for more than a month.

*) Dating Sim - just how complicated can the familial relationships get between the incestuous members of Albert Square?

*) Get Me To Manchester - how quickly can you get yourself into a situation where the only recourse is to leave for Manchester?

Boycott Firefox, gay devs urge as Mozilla appoints JavaScript daddy as CEO

cyborg
Trollface

I am all for equality of marriage

No one should be allowed to marry.

Hey frumious Reg gamers: BANG-or-SNATCH? We look at Second Son and Thief

cyborg

Re: Thief

It makes me want to go back and play the original. I don't think I ever completed the sequel.

This new one looks interesting but I'm not sure I can cope with changes to the formula - for me it was just about perfect as it was.

The plot to kill Google cloud: We'll rename Windows Azure to MICROSOFT Azure

cyborg
FAIL

Especially if one is to use turd lipstick.

EE...K: Why can't I uninstall carrier's sticky 'Free Games' app?

cyborg
Terminator

" If I have to hunt round the shop I'm usually oblivious to everything else except the item I'm looking for."

I call it "Terminator Mode".

QUIDOCALYPSE: Blighty braces for £100 MILLION cost of new £1 coin

cyborg

Re: Deal With It!

If I'm not mistaken the image show one that does - the sides are rounded off. Although that may be just an artifact of the image. If that is the case this seems like a pretty bad idea all round.

cyborg
Boffin

Re: Deal With It!

" Be thankful it's only a dodecagon, not something crazy like a triangle or square"

That will never happen - coins must have constant width (i.e. if you rolled it then its height doesn't change, unlike a square or triangle) otherwise machines won't be able to deal with them correctly.

Eight hour cleansing to get all the 'faggots' and 'bitches' OUT of Github

cyborg
Megaphone

This

I don't want these comments removed - they seem like handy signposts to the fact that the person's code is probably crap if they feel that comments are for complete irrelevancies.

BuzzGasm: 9 Incredible Things You Never Knew About PLIERS!

cyborg
IT Angle

A parody of BuzzFeed click-bait articles. Except this is not based off an arbitrary number of pictures of celebrities with minimal textual accompaniment it is instead an arbitrary number of pictures of pliers and almost pliers with minimal textual accompaniment.

If you don't know what BuzzFeed is then good. No need to find out.

Very fabric of space-time RIPPED apart in latest Hubble pic

cyborg
Boffin

Re: I wonder

Well we already know we're on a collision course with the Andromeda galaxy. However you've got to remember at some billions of light years away these things aren't exactly going to be an immediate threat to any particular star system.

Prez Obama cyber-guru: Think your data is safe in an EU cloud? The NSA will raid your servers

cyborg
Flame

Re: Soo...

If you lock it he'll just have to smash the door down.

Object to #YearOfCode? You're a misogynist and a snob, says the BBC

cyborg

It's a serious refactoring project.

Of course if the law is easily interpretable that does mean lawyers are redundant. Serious conflict of interest there.

You’re NOT fired: The story of Amstrad’s amazing CPC 464

cyborg

Re: I remember those 3" Floppy disks

Those disks were expensive though - I remember getting them as birthday presents for my +3!

Larry Ellison: Technology has 'negatively impacted' children

cyborg
Trollface

Re: Technology gives you more options and some of the ways it's exploited have bad results

I'm telling you if our kids don't grow up knowing the fundamentals of a Spinning Jenny it'll lead to the ruin of society! These new fangled steam powered looms must be stopped! With our sabots preferably!

KA-BLAM!! Marvel Comics opens super-powered data API to web devs

cyborg
Facepalm

Re: Collective noun for users of this API

International JSON League?

Wait... wrong company.

Microsoft's new CEO: The technology isn't his problem

cyborg
Holmes

"You want to install some software? You just have to recompile the kernel."

Obvious troll is obvious.

Come on people - you can't take this post seriously.

Apple marks '1984' anniversary with iPhone-produced un-commercial

cyborg
Trollface

Re: Too many variables

No, no, no, we'll have none of this. Brand X computer product always fails whilst Brand Y comes to the rescue.

Brand Y - because it hasn't failed yet.

cyborg
Trollface

Re: Company of the people?

"Company for the 'rich' perhaps, notable absence of people from the southern hemisphere."

Well they ain't giving it away.

Bill Gates to pull a Steve Jobs and SAVE MICROSOFT – report

cyborg
Trollface

Re: Seriously

All you have to do is be richer than Anonymous and you'll be right.

That's how these things work apparently.

Amazon reports rare profit and is punished by Wall Street

cyborg

2% is a *huge* margin when you're typically dealing with fractional percentage changes.

cyborg
Boffin

Re: Translation:

Yes, this makes sense entirely - if they estimated X amount and therefore priced the share at that amount and Amazon only achieved Y amount you can expect the share price to reflect that difference in expectation. It wouldn't make any sense if they didn't.

If you don't like the fact speculation is what drives investment fine but don't be surprised when this happens because for anything else to happen wouldn't make any sense.

Stephen Fry rewrites computer history again: This time it's serious

cyborg
FAIL

Re: Why let truth get in the way...

"You know he doesn't make up the questions, right? You know he's given the answers on the autocue or into his ear, right? You know HE KNOWS all these things, right?"

I really don't think the people who are trying to be all superior care as long as they can troll it up.

cyborg
FAIL

Re: Overreaction?

"You conveniently overlooked "cracked". Which is the whole point."

A very weak one indeed.

Globe grabbin,’ sphere slammin’, orb-tossin’, pill poppin’... Speedball

cyborg

I didn't think there was a Spectrum version?

Developers: Behold the bug NOBODY can fix

cyborg
Pirate

Re: What's a fork bomb?

Quite simply you can fork a process in *nix with a simple command to create two new processes. Have a script like that and it'll fork itself until pids run out and you crash or just stop anything doing any real work.

cyborg
Coat

You can fix that bug...

But it requires changing the shell, not the script

The internet is 'a gift from God' says Pope Francis

cyborg
Alien

We've got a couple of those in the form of the Muslim and Mormon Holy texts.

Hmm... maybe Dianetics as well.

cyborg
Trollface

Re: Makes you wonder!

"What else have anti-religious types distorted to grind their particular axe when the simple plain facts show the arguments to be what they are?"

He's just following the Pope's lead on the distorion of the simple plain facts.

UK.gov recruiting 400 crack CompSci experts to go into teaching

cyborg

Re: What about the kids who have no aptitude for programming?

Yes, I believe politics is the destination for those who have no aptitude for *anything*.

Bored with patent trolls? Small fry - prepare for the Design Trolls

cyborg

Depends how big the rectangle is.

Not even 1.4m users can save 4Chan founder Chris Poole's startup

cyborg
Devil

Re: Problem is simple...

I think all apps in development today need to contain "Saga" in there somewhere.

Ex-Google, Mozilla bods to outwit EVIL BOTS with 'polymorphic' defence

cyborg
Boffin

Re: It seems like a rather long winded way to say:

"The virus doesn't exploit weakness in the AV to bypass it and infect the system, the virus is a fragement of a full program and actually lifts the AV code to complete itself."

Yeah, that's par for the course in biology as far as viruses are concerned.

cyborg
Boffin

Re: It seems like a rather long winded way to say:

"Can't help but be reminded a little of the cyber warfare in GitS, in particular viruses that used the defenses of a system as an essential piece of their functionality."

That's how viruses in real life work.

Hadron Collider urinal cake tale wins El Reg's LHC book giveaway

cyborg
Headmaster

Don't be silly! It's time to get out the microfiche and look through the archives.

Probe of Hollywood-Euro Pay TV contracts: What happens next?

cyborg
FAIL

Re: How big is your pie?

" who decides if they screen yet more celebs & dancing, anyway?"

The fact that people will complain the BBC is too highbrow if it doesn't cater for the ITV crowd. These arguments aren't new.

Personally I'd be more than happy if that money went into BBC Four but I can't see it happening politically. I don't really understand how anyone can really believe given the trajectory on "quality" programming that making the BBC a commercial entity is really going to improve that situation is that's what people care about. Because I don't think they care about it.

Microsoft buries Sinofsky Era... then jumps on the coffin lid

cyborg

Re: Back in the real world

Toys. Work. Disability.

Now we're cookin' on gas: Google crafts sugar-alert contact lens for diabetics

cyborg
Boffin

Re: Okay, but...

Yes, it's not the instanteous results that are the most interesting it's the constant monitoring that offers the real benefits. I do wonder how the accuracy of this compares to taking a finger prick blood sample - it may well be superior. (One of the problems being that you generally have to wait at least an hour after eating to see the effect reflected).

cyborg
Boffin

Given they're talking about hypoglycemia this would seem to be more about type 1 than type 2 diabetes and type 1 diabetes cannot be caused by the poor diet associated with type 2. It is not clear whether or not this can give any sort of accurate mmol reading or if it's just a more simple normal/low indicator without the high detection. Type 2 diabetics tend to have more problems with hyperglycemia than hypoglycemia as they are often not on insulin taken with meals where by far the easiest way to have a problem is by overshooting on the dose you give yourself.

As a type 1 diabetic I look forward to when I can actually get my hands on one of these.

Even 'Your computer has a virus' cold-call gits are migrating off XP

cyborg
Mushroom

Re: For some reason ..

> I think it was shut down last year for breaking telecommunications laws

Yet these fuckers continue unabated?

Thanks law!

'Climate change is like Y2k!' - Oz senator

cyborg
Boffin

@Tabor - what we do know

Is that the climate has been different in the past. We can be pretty sure it'll be different in the future. If nothing else the fact that the continents are moving (and that is measurable) will take care of that. The real problem is people acting as if we being responsible or not is even relevent. Even if all our industry is responsible for a component of current changes in climate stopping it all tomorrow isn't going to stop any of the other natural processes that will be responsible for equally dramatic shifts in climate that threaten the comfortable civilizations we are used to.

As a species we really do need to get over the notion that we're at the centre of everything.

Feminist Software Foundation gets grumpy with GitHub … or does it?

cyborg

Re: Chicks' logic

I feel for the poor computers expected to implement such a langauge.

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