Posts by madick

Re: Shame about MPs

I've been advocating random selection for MPs for decades:

a) It's more representative of the general population

b) It reduces the probability that the country's law makers will be a bunch of shysters

c) It may/should lead to the demise of party politics

There would need to be a list of those who were ineligible for selection:

a) Anyone who is or has ever been elected as an MP, MEP, SMP, local government councillor, etc.

b) Anyone who has ever been convicted of a violent crime (defn. required)

c) Add your favourite group of nutters here (e.g. BBC/Guardian journalists, Scientology advocates, etc)

Re: Agreed [ 0.5*15*(18000^2) = 2.4e9 J]

"The Express commentators would have ..."

"In the Mail ..."

Whereas my first thought was "So If I wanted to get some OSB sheets in there, they'd have go though the hatch diagonally" Hmmm?.

Re: Why does the US care if people own bits of the Moon?

Apple already have a patent on the Moon - it's got rounded corners.

Re: six squares ?

There was also a government version of Izal - supplied to loos in MoD and DoT establishments (and probably other ministries departments). Although identical to Izal, it didn't have the brand name, but each sheet was printed with the inspiring slogan "Property of HM Government".

But there isn't a Reg standard for the origin of time, or even a Reg standard for measuring time intervals. (http://www.theregister.co.uk/Design/page/reg-standards-converter.html). If there were, it would be possible to express the frequencies of the bell in sensible units rather than boring old Hertz.

Perhaps time should be measured in b@gg@rs, where 1 b@gg@r equals the time interval between pressing the 'send' button on an email and, on realising that you've sent to the wrong address, shouting "b@gg@r!"

Re: Mechanical damage

Agreed - probably both. Mechanical maltreatment first (sat on or dropped) - which damaged the case seal allowing water to subsequently seep into the phone when it was dropped into the sink or splashed. The damage to the seal may not have been noticed and it could take several minutes for a few drops of water to permeate through the phone's guts before shorting something catastrophic.

Re: Although the burden of proof lies with Love

The relevant bit of badly written legal jargon is Section 53, para 2 of RIPA (2000):

"In proceedings against any person for an offence under this section, if it is shown that that person was in possession of a key to any protected information at any time before the time of the giving of the section 49 notice, that person shall be taken for the purposes of those proceedings to have continued to be in possession of that key at all subsequent times, unless it is shown that the key was not in his possession after the giving of the notice and before the time by which he was required to disclose it."

Which appears to mean that forgetting a key is not a valid defence when charged with failing to supply it.

Para 3 then confirms that anyone trying to use the "Sorry, I can't remember" defence has to produce some (actually "sufficient") evidence to back this up.

"For the purposes of this section a person shall be taken to have shown that he was not in possession of a key to protected information at a particular time if—

(a) sufficient evidence of that fact is adduced to raise an issue with respect to it; and

(b) the contrary is not proved beyond a reasonable doubt."

What would count as "sufficient" evidence is a moot point. Would:

"I cannot remember what I had for I had for breakfast yesterday - how do expect me to remember a sequence of 30 random letters and digits that I haven't used in the last three months?" be adequate?

But sub para (b) is similarly badly written - "The prosecution will show, beyond reasonable doubt, that the defendant can remember his password."

What about Sulla?

He'd slaughtered, banished, or scarred away all his potential opponents and critics before he retired. That left him with nothing to do except petty bureaucracy - either this bored him, or he considered it beneath him.

Re: Blobby cars?

There's more than enough space in the back of Fiat 600 Multipla for horizontal dancing.

However, a threesome in the back of Fiat Nuova 500 (http://www.automodely.sk/8488-thickbox/fiat-nuova-500-eco-diorama-1-43.jpg and http://www.automodely.sk/8490-thickbox/fiat-nuova-500-eco-diorama-1-43.jpg) required:

physical dexterity, mutual determination, college student grade stupidity and the roof rolled right back.

The design of the roof was changed on the 500D and later models so that it only opened half way - spoilsports!

"Slag can be used with cement as a component of concrete."

In the concrete industry, the stuff is generally known as ground granulated blast furnace slag - GGBFS or GGFS - sometimes abbreviated to blast furnace slag - BFS. This distinguishes it from other types of industrial waste products which may also be termed as "slag".

...but a stray from somewhere else ...

I think it probably has to be. I don't known of any models on solar system formation that would allow for a planet of that sort of mass (Earth x10) to be formed with that sort of eccentric, inclined orbit.

Re: Michelson-Morely ?

The basic concept is similar, but the engineering is far more complex - roughly equivalent Stevenson's Rocket vs an MRI scanner.

Re: What we HAD to do?

" Is this covered by homeowners insurance?"

I don't know about homeowners insurance in the USA, but in the UK, cover would probably depend upon whether or not Jacob Powell had been given a key to his parents' house..

Re: Various Intentions.

The Blighter AUDS Anti-UAV Defence System (from your link) appears to be able to "disrupt" the radio control system of these drones but doesn't actually shoot them down.

There's a nice video of this system available here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P8aZ0zWX3SA

What I find surprising is, given this incident happened in Texas, no one tried to blast it out of the sky with an Ar-15.

Re: Over engineered?

A web reference says that for "ship" should be read "sheep".

Thanks - interesting. I'd always assumed that this proverb referred to ship's caulking, but this reference gives a reasonably complete history.

http://findwords.info/term/halfpennyworth

It appears that misunderstanding arose sometime in the 19th century - Hazlitt (1869) mentions both "ship" and "sheep".

Re: Read the whole thing

"God is not your personal magician who pulls your ass out of the fire if you bargain with him."

However, according to Genesis 18:22 to 33, Abraham did exactly this.

50 righteous people - OK. So how about 45? Or 40? or 30? or 20? Well how about 10?

Although Abraham lost - he couldn't even find 10 righteous people - the story certainly suggests he was bargaining with God.

Re: Doesn't add up

Agreed. It doesn't add up.

The NPL report states:

"The electronics industry has a waste problem - currently over 100 million electronic units are discarded annually in the UK alone.... This amounts to around 1 million tonnes in the UK annually"

i.e. 1/100 tonne (about 10kg) per "electronic unit".

A typical laptop weighs about 2.5kg (including its battery and screen) and the electronics inside a typical desktop or tower weigh about the same. Even household electric motors (from tumble dryers, washing machines, fridges and freezers) rarely weigh more than 6kg each. (And they shouldn't count because they're metallic.)

So what are these heavy "electronic units" that push the average weight up to 10kg?

Re: “raise your wrist” to see a message

"... 1974 Vauxhall Viva, in the owners manual ..."

The early Honda C50 owners manual (c1966) - supplied in English but "translated" from Japanese, included, as one of the advantages of this machine:

"Is having large wheels for giving very pleasing sensation when travelling bumpy ground"

Re: Naked he-boobies legal. Naked she-boobies not. Explain.

At the end of the spectrum, wasn't there some suggestion 4 - 5 years ago that Australian censors were to ban A-cup size or smaller, 'cos they might be mistaken for underage girls?

Sounds like a Goldilocks complex - these are too big, these are too small, but these ones are legal.

Re: That Dutch MEP nailed it pretty much

"... just pay attention to the encrypted communication..."

Fine if you know which messages actually are encrypted. I would assume that most of the "bad guys" are using steganographic methods to hide their (probably encrypted) messages.

Re: I would argue the situation was even worse

I've been investing in lampposts for nearly 20 years - I was hoping to sell them at a profit, but if you're willing to do the equivalent job for free, then I'll just have to donate them to a worthy cause.

www.lightinthebox.com/Sunglasses-with-4GB-MP3-Player- ...

Not really covert unless your hair is long enough to cover the earphones/microphones and control unit on the arms of these shades. I suppose you could wear a (badly fitting, blonde) wig to conceal these?

Ben Tasker

"... the parents were probably asked a loaded question ..."

The NAHT survey states that:

80 per cent said they were confident or very confident of protecting their children from the dangers of viewing explicit images of violence or sex online.

So either the parents who answered this survey are all IT experts, or they are very naive.

Re: They are getting him out of there, this is part of the plan,

Good idea, but I think it's too complicated.

How about through the window into a harness hanging from a helicopter with a winch? Then out to sea to a Ecuadorian registered ship outside UK territorial waters.

The helo would be violating airspace restrictions for 2 or 3 minutes whilst over central London, but "they" can hardly shoot it down - even if a Tornedo/Eurofighter could be scrambled and sent to intercept in time.

And naval mines as well.

Re: Insurance concerns

Many (most?) health and life insurance companies already ask you've ever been screened for an STD, and bump up the premiums even if the test result was negative - presumably on the grounds that if your life style was such that you needed these tests then you are more likely to become infected at some time in the future.

The same "logic" could be applied to genetic testing for a wide variety of other conditions.

Re: Big Brother fail

"It's all very well to fear terrorists and to fear espionage, but this won't stop terrorists; they will not be caught out by these regulatory measures. What they will do is circumnavigate them."

Exactly. Probably by using a steganographic method with the resulting pictures containing the hidden text posted on Facebook, a porno site, or an innocent hobby site, thus avoiding detection by traffic analysis.

Re: Will nobody think of the cheeeeeeeeeeeeeldren?

Totally unquantified? Not quite true; Child Exploitation and Online Protection centre (Ceop) report published May 2011:

" ... 513 people arrested and 132 offender networks broken up in the UK in the past year. " (2010)

However, according to May, there were >500,000 requests for intercepts last year (2011). Either this is cr*p success rate, or the intercepts were primarily for other purposes.