Posts by AdamG57

Re: Not quite true

Well, I won't be voting for the blowhard. But you should be aware that describing someone as a felon who has not been convicted is libel... You may be safe as long as you leave it unclear which person you are naming as a felon - although the blowhard is far more likely to sue anyway.

I'm not going to bother arguing about presumption of innocence, evidence beyond reasonable doubt, or the strong likelihood that neither you or I has any real information about the 'crimes' which may be involved, as I too frequently would like to see politicians sent to jail - it doesn't happen often enough. I do think anyone supporting the blowhard is going to find themselves even further betrayed when the fantasies being peddled remain just that win or lose. Mind you, the other one will probably disappoint to some degree. Politics will disappoint, but let's try to avoid disasters like Herbert Hoover (a great man until elected), Nixon (from even before first elected to any office), and George W Bush (who was once a decent mascot/ cheerleader, and remains a poor painter).

Re: Nothing is determined

Um, no. Things may be determined at any point. We don't know what was determined until it is observed. And this is science, so the wishes of the observer cannot matter - this is not some subjective reality.

Imagine the radioactive trigger also stops a stopwatch when it goes off - you will know when the cat died, if triggered. And if you leave the cat unobserved for say a week, the chance it is alive when observed (that is, the decay with a half life of an hour) is next to nothing 1/2 to the power of 168...

The collapse of the wave function, mathematically - and I'm on thin ice here - has to do with the cancelling out of so called imaginary numbers so that a real measurement can be taken.

The part that interests me as an applied set theorist is the notion of three possible states rather than a binary alive or dead. What would Codd say to this implied proof of the real existence of nulls?

Re: sub-launched nuclear armed cruise missiles

Why did I read that as a Harman/Corbyn Fleet?

Re: George Orwell...

'Rolling" in his grave? Well I guess 'spinning' has a new and different meaning when it comes to politics, thanks to the saintly Alistair Campbell... Whose government did read 1984 as a guide book, in addition to Machiavelli. Given that Orwell (a Blairite in his own way :-)) was at least as cynical as Machiavelli I rather hope he would have weighed the possibility that his work would benefit instead of discomfit the would be tyrant.

Now I shall have to find a biography or interview to confirm or deny what Orwell felt about 1984... Or await the better educated commentator.

Re: Ahem, everyone voting on (almost) everything does exist....

Oh Charles, do look!

You posit that (internally?) peaceful countries are more culturally homogenous, and presumably that multiple cultures lead to conflict within a country. Leaving aside all the messy questions of definition, I would note first that conflict exists in every society, and may well exploit cultural differences; second, that some cultures may accept violence more readily than others; and third that the process of forming countries is rather different when many cultures are included as against a 'national self-determination'.

European history - in the era of the nation state - is a history of colonisers and empire builders for the most part. The very idea of projecting a mono-culture into other parts of the world is almost uniquely European and was not carried out peacefully. The corollary is that it is not uncommon for European states to divide up based on majority cultures, whether in eastern Europe, the Balkans, or nowadays various regional movements in the West,

In other parts of the world, different patterns have emerged. The largely Spanish oriented nations of South America have experienced wars between nations and murderous conflicts within nations which to the outside eye seem fairly homogenous; contemporary Pakistan might be seen as more homogenous and also more violent than perhaps India; Singapore is perhaps peaceful yet ethnically divided; Canada's cultural divide may be more pronounced in Quebec than elsewhere, but I don't think it the more violent for that.

America may well have 'culture wars' and also have violence, but these only come together in certain configurations as a rule. Yes, there were 'cowboys and indians' but also 'cowboys v. cowboys'. The US Civil War was fought between fairly similar cultures (if rather different societies!), as were indeed the English War of the Roses, Civil War, and many other conflicts on this Island....

Re: Confusion as usual

Hmm, international law - well, though that is a good summary, it is incomplete, referring to the mostly codified by treaty law of states. But there is well established customary and case law to establish the powers of states with regard to both non state actors - pirates for example - quasi States, such as rebellions and others who claim territory but are not recognised as governments. As to how the UK or US (or in theory any other nation ) chooses to use force in such conflicts, apart from any domestic or military law, there are customary international rules - here the Caroline case justification is being used, involving necessity (impossible to judge without knowledge of secret information - but in principle capable of a judicial ruling - and proportionality, which seems on the first hand well enough targeted with apparently 3 people killed, of which all 3 were agents of the 'enemy' and at least one was the direct target. Whether any UK or indeed Syrian laws were broken is however a possibility. I'm fairly certain that British citizens serving in 'enemy' forces have been killed by British forces in combat before - perhaps sailors on US ships in 1812?

The UN can take action or authorise it, for example with regard to the intervention in Afghanistan, if it could agree.

Re: Why? I stuck it in a VM - Personally

I haven't checked the latest versions of Windows, but I imagine that editing the Hosts file - back it up first ! - and adding entries like www.microsoft.com 127.0.0.1 would probably do the trick. I'm sure someone will comment on how to best refine this method...

ON AN unrelated note, as a 'pedal best pushed to the metal' man when it comes to running database servers, I must admit that my prejudice against hyperVVMware is beginning to slip away as I contemplate the seeming inevitability of ever more rapid pawnage of newer OS(s) and even chip sets.

Leslie Neilson there must be some way to build a physical system with an actual key which would need to be turned to gain root privileges! Or have I got a kickstarter there?

I'm willing to be flamed, I mean educated about why even a database server should really be virtualised but so far the places where this is done and I have worked have always had weirdly tight disk space restrictions on critical DBs (coupled with mail systems which effectively dwarf the DBs, filled with endless copies of rubbish attachments).