Posts by CrazyOldCatMan

Re: As for ghosts (holy or otherwise) ...

Ghosts are real - people see them all the time

So are UFOs real then? Cos people see those all the time too..

There is large prize that's been outstanding for many, many years that will be given to someone that can conclusively prove that ghosts exist. It has yet to be claimed.

Re: Not that kind of orgy, silly!

so they just made their priests celibate instead

No - that comes from a very different idea (the Church is the Bride of Christ so 'priests' can't be married to anyone else).

One of the many departures from 1st Century Christianity that the Catholic church is responsible for (the 10th Century Celtic church had no such rule but they eventually got borged by the church of Rome..)

Christmas was obviously picked by the church for maximum impact

It's all part of the cultural assimilation done by the mid-period church (much like the concept of the Trinity, the idea of an immortal soul and a literal devil - all imports from pagan religions).

The process goes like this:

1. Send missionaries into an area and convert the rulers.

2. Once the rulers are converts, don't make them give up their usual festivals but re-brand them.

3. Over time the origianl source gets muddled and people forget.

s the timing of that is related to the Jewish Passover festival

That's because Jesus died at Pesach.

Also he's responsible for Easter eggs and Christmas presents

Errr.. no and no.

(While I'm pretty sure that your comments were firmly in the tongue-in-cheek territory, both those festival trappings that you mention are pagan.. especially as Jesus was most probably born in 3BC and around April..)

She knows.

He knows, you know.

But he's got problems..

Re: Is anyone surprised ? Really ?

KNOWING WHAT THE WORDS MEAN

Not only that but the intent that the speaker puts behind the words. Something that only the speaker knows and no rules engine is ever going to guess until we have proper AI and direct machine/brain interfaces

Re: crafted in the style of African American English (AAE)

Surely AI should be able to work out the context

Well, given that an awful lot of humans can't, it's a bit much to expect a primitive and badly-taught rules engine to do the same..

Re: 6% toxic

You can put *anyone* in jail because of this kind of crime

"Give me six words from an innocent man and I will give you enough to hang him."

Re: “I saw his ass yesterday”

Toxic to snowflakes

There's a useful phrase: "to the pure, all things are pure".

The intent behind that phrase is that your attitude and response to things come from who you are and what you expect. So, if you expect to be offended by something, then you will be. If you don't see everything as suspicious, then you won't find it suspicious.. etc etc.

Sure - there are people that will nitpick about things other people say (to the nth degree often) and assume that every word that comes out of someones mouth is deliberately designed to offend. The fact is, most people really are not that careful about the exact words they say.

Lastly: We judge ourselves by our intentions but judge others by their deeds.

Re: This requirement for paper bills/statements...

like it seems everyone else around here, i moved house in August

[Waves]

I didn't. In fact, we haven't moved since 1997. I like not having a mortgage and have no desire to go back to having one..

Re: This requirement for paper bills/statements...

And one place wanted proof of ID so, having established that a driving license was, in fact, a valid proof of ID.

So I proffered mine. The young thing[1] behind the desk asked for my real drivers license. I only have one and informed her that the bit of paper[2] she was holding was, in fact, my full and valid drivers license.

"Aha!" she says "where's the picture then?".

Fortunately there was also present someone born before this millenium that gently informed her that, in the very old days, licenses were just on paper and didn't have a plastic picture card with them.

[1] In the old days I'd have said that she was on work experience.

[2] Or, more accurately, the several bits of paper that my license has disintegrated into. That's what happens when it spends a lot of time in a motorbike jacket inside pocket..

Re: This requirement for paper bills/statements...

name of "Phil", and your official ID says "Philip"

It's even worse if you use a shortened version of your middle name and don't use your legal first name at all.

Fortunately, my employer understands the concept of "preferred name".

Re: Oh dear!

My password is: AZERTY

[clickety-clickety-click]

Why - so it is!

And you should be ashamed at some of the pictures you are storing..

Re: I have to thank ken for my passwords

Coders should have sound proofed booths

Better make it airtight as well :-)

back door access to your router

Yeah - it's called SNMP and is pretty much an industry standard. It's not like they are individually telnetting/ssh-ing onto your router..

Mind you, BlahBlah are probably using SNMPv1, thus ignoring all the security stuff bolted onto later versions..

I knew that penicillin kills guinea pigs

And paracetamol is very toxic to both cats and dogs (causes acute liver failure even in very small doses).

In general, unless specified otherwise by a vet[1] don't *ever* give human medicine to animals.

[1] We had an elderly dog that needed tramadol. What the vet prescribed was identical to what I had previously been prescribed (same dosage too) for arthritis.. So (with the understanding of the vets) we used up my supply since I wasn't taking it any more[2] but the capsules were still in-date.

[2] Too many side effects - including insomnia.

Dogmatix!

Mykingdomforahorse!

(I seem to recall he was a chief of the Britons.. The guy who Getafix first made tea for)

Re: If pluto's not a planet...

the article on Gaul is fairly accurate

Pikiwedia is usally reasonably good as long as you stay away from political stuff or the woo-woo fringe stuff..

Re: If pluto's not a planet...

I'm unfamiliar with Gallic mythology

Probably because we know very little about it (apart from some of the names of their gods - old Julius wrote a little about them (assigning them to equivalent Roman gods mostly) and we have a few other sources that mention the names but, other than that, we know very little[1]. We do know some of their tribal names and chieftans (Vercingetorix for example) but again, it's mostly because Julius wrote about them as he fought them.

Their culture was very similar to ancient Welsh culture so we can get some idea of their beliefs[2] but we certainly don't know any detail.

[1] That's the problem with a mostly-oral set of traditions[3] - there simply isn't enough documentary evidence.

[2] A rough outline with no detail - the druids[3] didn't write them down.

[3] The Roman-era druids didn't write stuff down. So modern-day druids who claim to be following their beliefs are (mostly) following beliefs made up by the Victorians and Edwardians histoical fantasists. Which they tend to get annoyed about if you point it out.

Google need to have an appeals process that actually takes the substance of the appeal on board

But that would cost Google money and has the capability for possibly causing them some embarrasment. Computer says NO,

Google's reaction is over the top

That's because it's driven by badly-written "AI" and minimum-wage drones who don't have any choice or leeway. It's not like Google will put anyone competent on something that they are not going to make money from..

upnp or mdns(bonjour)

Ah, the spawn of the Evil One and its Best Buddy. A pox on both their houses I say!

Re: re: flashbacks

I still get VM flyers telling me that my home

Vermin Media recently cabled up my area of the street (our section of houses were not built until about 5 years after the rest of the the houses so the original cabling didn't cover us at all - but we still got VM sales weasels calling to try to sell us the service).

They actually did a reasonable job of the install - put connector points near each house. However, having dealt with Vermin Media as part of my work duties, I would never, ever (unless they were the only option) use them for a home connection[1]. As I explained to the sales weasel who knocked on the door after the new cabling had been done. At some length. We haven't had a visit since so I suspect we've been put on the "don't bother to call" list.

[1] I say 'home connection' - I have a business-class FTTC connection because I run SMTP & web servers off my server at home. So I'd have to go for VM-Business..

Re: The specialist kit is capable of installing 700 metres of cabling a day

we called, you were out, please reschedule.

To which our response is usually "well, we told you that that site didn't upen until 8am[1] - why the hell did you turn up at 7am?".

Their response is usually "sorry, didn't see that in the notes".

[1] And to make it worse, some sites don't open at all in the winter so, come spring, we get a rash of "no-one was using the broadband so we turned it off"..

Re: The specialist kit is capable of installing 700 metres of cabling a day

BT engineers know how to use it

The delays are usually in the planning stages - identifying land owners, gaining wayleave permits and the like. And (sometimes) checking to see if there are any protected historical sites where the trench is proposed to go..

Re: They might want to ask Google about micro-trenching

eading to tripping hazards, cable breakage and angry government departments

And (in England anyway) a very angry historic conservation public body asking why you've just cut through an archeological site that you didn't know existed (since you didn't bother to check).

That's the problem with living somewhere where people have been living for 3000+ years. *Lots* of archeology in the ground..

Re: Le Diable

On, off, and flicker.

Much like the electrics fitted to Ducatti motorbikes - they work fine in Italy in the nice bright, warm sunshine. Here in the not-bright, not-warm and very definately not-dry rain, not so well. Even with liberal application of damp-start and WD-40.

Re: Le Diable

Nah. The Prince of Darkness haunts Naples, not somewhere in France

Maybe he's subbed the job off to the Under-manager of insufficient Light..

(h/t to Scott Adams from the days before he became a Trump apologist - although I'm not *entirely* convinced that he's not just winding everybody up..)

Re: Is this just an English thing ?

olde wordes

And the terminal or penultimate 'e' was never pronounced (so it's not 'oldie') but instead are used to emphasise the preceding letter..

So "The Olde Shoppe" isn't pronounced as "the oldie shoppie" but "the old shop"

(I like Þ - we should bring it back..)

Re: Is this just an English thing ?

as "thou/thee/thy" instead of "you/your"

Thee/thou/thy were always the formal version of you/your.. and were dropped when such formality went out of style (when the King James Bible was written thee/thou/thy had already dropped out of fashion in standard speech but was included because of the subject matter. Of course, it then came back into speech among the very religious, simply because that's what the Bible used.. And since it had become (again) standard religious speech it crossed over into being used in context where respect was to be indicated like National Anthems..).

Re: Is this just an English thing ?

The Académie française is not happy

I thought that that was their default state..