Posts by PT

@Err...

I think the difference between cults and religions can be summed up succinctly as follows:

My group is a religion, yours is a cult.

@Dave Handley

Your point about the productive states in the US subsidizing the unproductive is quite topical here, given that the unproductive states are mostly governed by strident ideologues screaming about reducing the Federal budget. We should make a start with these states' welfare. But it will be interesting to see how it plays out in the EU. There's an alternative to leaving the Eurozone, which is to run the productive economy on an unofficial parallel currency and to hell with the central banks. That's what will happen anyway, in the event the austerity measures get too harsh, whether the alternative is drachma, dollars, gold, bitcoins or bottle caps. Of course that will also be illegal, but unlike the other illegal options, it will be popular.

non-subsidised food?

Naughtyhorse, you must be very young. Anyone old enough to be buying the groceries when Heath took us into the (then) Common Market will remember with a shudder what happened to food prices. The EU has never subsidised food, at least not for Europeans. It subsidises farmers.

Never mind about the oil and coal...

What about the trillions of tons of chalk, limestone, gypsum and other carbonate sedimentary rocks? The amount of carbon in fossil fuels is insignificant by comparison.

@US debt ceiling

Because, strangely enough, the US government CANNOT print money. The Federal Reserve (a wholly private enterprise) prints the money, and lends it to the US government in exchange for bonds and other debt instruments. The detailed workings of this arrangement are beyond me, not least because the Federal Reserve is exempt from normal oversight that might help to explain how the whole tottering house of cards is constructed and sustained.

Idiots?

"... there are millions of people worldwide creating and developing amazing stuff, with no problems."

They're not idiots - they just haven't made enough money yet to put blood in the water.

But... but ...

In the majority of cases this is what happens anyway, regardless of whether you have a patent. Defending it through the courts is beyond the means of anyone without a huge pot of money or a VC backer, and even in those cases it can be a Pyrrhic victory where the costs outweigh the benefits. This is particularly true in the US, where costs are seldom granted.

Since abolishing software patents will scarcely impact the little guy, I can't see the AC's argument has any merit.

Last Tango

Actually, Last Tango was banned for a different reason - it showed people having meaningless casual sex and, um, really enjoying themselves. Except that it wasn't really meaningless and they didn't really enjoy it, but you'd have to watch the movie with an open mind - probably more than once - to understand the subtle messages. There's a world of difference between Tango and torture porn.

[citation required]

"Oxfam's analysis is only a rehash of Thomas Malthus, the 18th century political economist's theory in which whenever population outstripped food production, starvation would cull the numbers until the equation was restored. As we know, this is failed theory and should be extended the contempt it deserves."

Perhaps you could tell us of one instance in which this theory has been known to fail? It may not have failed - yet - for the human species in recent years, but it has proved unerringly correct for every other species - including humans - in the previous history of life on Earth.

@Fuzzy

FFS, Fuzzy, don't you understand that EVERY GOVERNMENT IN THE WORLD is obsessed with regulating and controlling the Internet? Some may be more vocal about it than others, but they all share the same mortal terror of a communications channel they can't monitor and control.

@What have I missed here

Er, that nowhere in the article does it say they are gas giants, or indeed, anything-giants. The only available data so far is that they have mass of the same order as a known gas giant, but that doesn't necessarily imply that they have similar size. They could be microscopic fragments of collapsed matter.

@ Jim Boom

Mr "not bin gettin laiden" had several wives, and was being attended to at the time of his death by one of the youngest.

In fact, she accompanied him into the afterlife. I wonder how the "72 virgins" program handles things if you show up with your wife.

Easy

Surely the problem of "orphan works" could easily be solved by returning to the old system where the copyright holder has to file for an extension of copyright after, say, seven years, and every seven years after that. Then works still of value to the copyright holders could be protected effectively in perpetuity, and other works where they can't be bothered would enter the public domain in a more timely fashion. I can't imagine why the content industry would object to this, though I'm sure they would.

Let's hear from an Über-Green

"The greens I have long suspected are one of the driving forces behind modern society being devolved into some sort of pre-industrialised cottage-industry-based wake-up-with-the-sun-and-go-back-to-bed-when-it-gets-dark pseudo feudal society"

Can this really be true? Here to tell us is an important and influential man called Maurice Strong. Read about him on Wiki to see how central he is to the whole thing. This is a verbatim quote from an interview with Canada West magazine in 1990 (sorry, I can't link the original source).

Quote:

"What if a small group of world leaders were to conclude that the principal risk to the Earth comes from the actions of rich countries? And if the world is to survive, those rich countries would have to sign an agreement reducing their impact on the environment. Will they do it? The group's conclusion is "no." The rich countries won't do it. They won't change. So, in order to save the planet, the group decides: Isn't the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn't it our responsibility to bring that about?"

Does this sound like the sort of person you want influencing your national energy policy?

@ Ted Treen

There is no reason for the DVLC to keep a precise location diary of every vehicle, though they have acquired the ability thanks to ANPR. But that's an argument for another day. I'm touched by your naivette about the "hordes of spooks". Perhaps it's because I'm a 'merkin and live where such things are more obvious, but much spookery is now outsourced to politically-connected private enterprise, the main business of which seems to be a relentless search for more things to track. Government organizations may well be incompetent at delivering public service, but when it comes to looking out for their own interests they take second place to nobody.

@DrXym

"Geohot's actions were clearly violations of the DMCA."

Perhaps so. But no DMCA violation has ever made its way through the system to the court of ultimate appeal, at which point it would risk being found unconstitutional and struck down. Cynical observers might view that as a more likely reason why Sony settled.

I will

I think my disagreement is adequately expressed by the follow-up from The Original Ash. But thank you for reminding me to go back and review your post so I could give it a thumbs-down.

I do not love Big Brother, nor am I a supporter of the Thought Police. Your original post is nothing more than advice on a more reliable way to fit people up next time.

Verity Stob explains

"The best way to avoid risk is by advising that any activity is technically impossible for reasons that are far too complicated to explain. If that approach is not sufficient to halt the project, then the engineer will fall back to a second line of defense: "It's technically possible but it will cost too much."

Third solution

Set the damn computer clock to the right time manually, like every other clock in the house. God what a bunch of whiners.

Designed that way?

Like so many other things in the universe, the fact that we are here to observe it is a consequence of it being that way naturally. If it were not, Earth would have been barren of life a billion years ago, or maybe life would never have developed.

@utter, utter bastards

In this they merely continue the traditions of the former Southern Region. It's been many years since I traveled that route but I remember frequent journeys from London to Portsmouth where I had to stand, in a crush reminiscent of a Tokyo subway, for more than half the distance.

At least they haven't adopted the French practice of fining travelers who don't have a seat.

@What is Microsoft

Indeed. If the alternative to Google is Microsoft, then we are truly screwed. I just brought up a clean W7 system and wanted to install Firefox, which I typed into the Bing box on IE. It would appear that Bing has never heard of it.

Power line monitoring

Way way back, the spooks discovered how to read decrypted telex traffic in foreign embassies by monitoring electrical noise on the power lines going in to the code room. This varied minutely depending on what character was being set up to print next. I imagine that power lines have been carefully shielded and decoupled ever since this came to light, more than 50 years ago now.

@Conceptual Problem

If true, they appear to be passing off the task of vilifying Assange to more junior members of the team now. I wonder how many "undergrad courses" they have between them. Most individuals do only one.

I used to think they were State Department, but the recent change of tone and increase in sneering ad hominem comments leads me to suspect commercial mercenaries, possibly HBGary Federal.

@Gumby

"So in a nut shell, Assange is being charged with RAPE so that the duality test does not apply."

Your point is undermined by the fact that Assange hasn't actually been CHARGED with anything.

Scrap it & put 5% on VAT?

But.. but .. Wait! That's what they told us they were going to do in the beginning, when VAT was first introduced! "It's 8% now", they said, "and when we phase out the income tax it may rise to 15%, but we'll all be better off because VAT can't be avoided and it's so efficient!".

Never mind that the last statement turned out to be complete bollocks. If they get a second bite at that cherry, I predict that VAT will go up to 30% in one jump, but the "phasing out" of income tax will begin and end with lowering the rate by 3% in the first year and creeping it back up to current levels later.

double edged sword?

You would only have to worry about this if the revolution fails, since while it's going on the government has other more pressing things to worry about. It could be considered an incentive for putting one's best efforts into succeeding.