Posts by Mark O 34 publicly visible posts • joined 21 Aug 2007
Would you really stop a presentation to chastise one person reading a text? I understand how rude it is to see someone using a smart phone when I'm speaking in a meeting - I've experienced it myself more than once - but when I read your post I can't help but picture a school teacher interrupting a lesson to lecture a little kid for chatting in the back row.
You mock the intelligence of teachers and presumably that's why you're being down-voted, but I think you come close to making a good point and then miss it entirely - Teacher standards are slipping because teaching has become a job that nobody wants to do. If I didn't understand why before then I certainly do now that I catch a bus full of high school kids to work everyday.
The hermit types can be dangerous in my experience: We had a client who wanted to meet the engineer working on their project. All he had to do was put on a clean shirt and spend half an hour in a meeting room where he would face a few easy questions from the client team who also brought an engineer with them.
He did fine, until the discussion turned to new features, and our smiling project manager put a hand on his shoulder and said something along the lines of "this is the guy - he'll take care of it." The engineer snapped back that he would get to it when he had the time since he had much more important projects to work on. The whole thing was shyly laughed off as the project was too far along for this to hurt the business, but it was a huge embarrassment for the rest of the team.
Anyone with the most basic set of people skills, let alone business skills, would not have made such a comment in front of a client.
I'm amazed at what people will unwittingly publish. Like many people I use a hotmail account for facebook, and keep this isolated from anything serious I do online (banking, etc.) When I first signed up to Facebook I used one of it's tools to search for friends using my hotmail contacts. It found a recruitment agent I'd been in touch with and she used a pretty raunchy photo of herself as her main profile pic and was quite explicit in the personal details she made visible - all of this linked to her corporate email address.
I see a lot of comments about fizzy-pop lagers, and as someone who has tried a lot of beers and thinks each has their place, I've never really believed in CAMRA's main aim - which seems to be to tell people what "real" beer is.
This smacks of puritanism and even snobbery to me. As far as I'm concerned the only factor in determining whether you should drink a beer is "do you like the taste?"
An old ale drinker telling me that my tastes aren't as good as his is no different to culture vulture who looks down his nose at me because he goes to the opera and visits art galleries, whereas I'd rather watch a live band or go and see a sci-fi movie. Each to their own.
I think you are forgetting that these people weren't "offered" the extra crap - they were told that they were obliged to buy it (some of them were told it was Apple policy and thus would have assumed that the same rule applied everywhere else) It sounds to me like they were lied to by the salesmen, which is illegal.
Your claim that "People buy iPads because they really, really, want to own and fondle one" gives away your real reason for slagging off these buyers - I don't own any apple products, but I don't share your fan-boy bashing hatred of the people who do.
A lot of women will admit porn surfing to some people but not to others. The same rule applies to a lot of things with women (and to a lesser extent men) - If they trust and feel comfortable with you then they'll admit to all sorts of things, but if they think you're a weirdo then they won't even admit to taking their clothes off before they get in the shower.
A lot of pornography which would be considered normal elsewhere is illegal in many Australian states. If you want to buy a XXX rated movie in Sydney you need to drive to Canberra where it's legal. At least it was that way a few years back when I lived there - and by the sounds of things I doubt they've relaxed these laws.
Here's my two cents: Puritanical polititians get a foot hold in Australia by campaigning against child porn (a subject which always attracts hysterical media coverage over there.) Then when these pollies call for restrictions on more mainstream porn, good old Aussie apathy takes over. People will moan about it down the pub - but that's about it.
Are you actually serious? I though troll when I read your first post but when you come back with this bizarre maths of yours it makes me wonder...
It's the same sort of logic that questions why a fraudster who steals millions gets a few months while an armed robber takes a hundred bucks and gets ten years. It's the sort of logic that measures a persons life in dollar terms. I think you are either an insurance underwritter or a criminal.
Resticting membership of an association is different to restricting employment. Associations are no more than clubs, which to my mind, should always be allowed to be run as "private clubs" rather like I run a "private home".
If I decide not to let someone into my home because of his race, then my racism (and stupidity etc.) are irrelevent because it is *my* home and he/she has no right to demand an explanation. (If I shout racist crap at him from my doorway then that might be different.) The right to decide who you let in to your home/club/orgy/etc. is called freedom of association.
Employment is a different matter, although this is purely because the law has (rightly, IMHO) decided that freedom of association does not extend to staffing of a business be it public or private.
I've never had a technician fix any of my PC's as I've been around computers since the age of 8. However, I have one friend in his late 40's who wanted to get online despite the fact that he did not know how to double-click the mouse button. His mother was terribly upset when her rotary dial telephone was replaced by a push button model. Why? It reminded her of the bank's ATM which she simply does not understand.
Neither of these people are stupid - she is a retired English teacher and he is a motorcycle mechanic who has read more books than I've had breakfasts. Tech savvy people find it hard to see just how big the gap can be between the "knows" and the "know-nots". You simply can't assume people will feel comfortable doing anything more than checking that the PC is plugged in.
So the author should go back to living in a cave if he wants to question the value of a science experiment?
I'm a geek and I think the LHC is great, but it sounds to me like some of the others posting are a little quick to react
The article was taking a bit of a dig at what might still become a monumental flop.
I put a copy of Vista Home Premium in my washing machine on the 60 degree cotton colour-fast cycle and I was very disappointed with the result.
I have contacted several lawyers but they are unwilling to take my case, presumably because they know they can't beat Microsoft, which is a big rich monopoly.
You list one supposedly "glaring hole" in evolution and fail to mention that it is one of the most successful theories in science, supported by vast bodies of evidence. I would suggest that the Peacock does use it's tail feather to attract a mate (it's not the only example of such an evolved trait.) But please tell us what you think the difference is between an excuse and a reason - it might help me to understand your last paragraph, where you seem to make an _excuse_ for believing in God.
Copying is only wrong if you are making a profit? What a load of crap! It doesn't take much sense to work out that if everyone thought like that then Microsoft would make no money and the Windows OS would not exist. That might sound good to Linux hippies but I doubt there are many of you who absolutely NEVER use windows.
The people who preach against intellectual property rights using the notion that ideas should be free are one step away from those who preach against property rights altogether. In my view it's hypocrisy to even use a computer if you firmly believe in principles which would have prevented such technology from ever existing.
"Until their little ears can equalize they are in excruciating pain"
What? I've flown enough times in cattle class to have been subjected to a few crying babies - none of them gave the impression of being in excruciating pain. Also, the number of times I've sat across from a perfectly quiet baby sleeping through a whole flight would suggest that a lot of parents out there must have easy access to ice-pick-in-skull strength pain-killers.
As for mobile phones - they will cost a fortune to operate, so the average moron is not going to use them anymore than they use the in-flight phones that have been in planes for years. And this HANG UP law proposes that text messaging be allowed? I remember sitting on a train next to a teenager who received and responded to about fifteen SMS messages to carry out a conversation which presumably would have taken two minutes with a voice call. The fifteen bee-beep tones were much more annoying in my view.
I'm sure the brilliant business minds that came up with this idea have already thought about this, but what happens when a plumber needs to unblock a sewer pipe? or when one needs to be dug up because it is broken.
Does this mean that every time a pipe leaks and needs to be dug up there must be a crew of technicians present to ensure the fibre optic link is not damaged? and to repair it if it is.
What about when Joe Bloe plumber sticks an electric eel down a sewer pipe to unblock it and wipes out the internet connection for an entire street? Forget about rats - are the cables going to be strong enough to handle an enormous drill bit churning away at them?
I don't think the George Bush search result is any sort of conspiracy by Wales and his people. Try it on Google - I got GoogleNews articles followed by Bush's Wikipedia entry and his official site (all weighted I assume) and then following that I got the same joke sites making fun of him that Wikia Search finds. He's easy to make fun of, and probably would like to be a crack whore when he grows up anyway.
As for Wikipedia policy and the foam-at-the-mouth anger it seems to inspire, I think people should lighten up. I use Wikipedia because each (properly written) article provides links to its references. Essentially Wikipedia provides search functionality, a summary of a topic, and links to further reading if you're interested (or if you don't trust the author.) So what if Wales suffers from a god complex? His site is useful, and the software it runs on is free for anyone so inclined to start their own JoeBloePedia where they can apply their own set of biases.
My problem with the way Watson's comments have been dealt with is that they have simply been dismissed as racist instead of being tackled head on and seriously debated. Some will argue that you give credibility to a flawed position when you dignify it with a response, but I would argue otherwise.
There is a large part of the population who believe that Watson is being dismissed purely because of 'Political Correctness.' In other words, they think he is right, but that he is being ignored because his statements are not socially acceptable. These are the people who need to be shown the scientific evidence that Watson is wrong.
A few points like the following would help:
* Childhood nutrition plays a major part in mental development and combined with education levels, can explain away any racial or geographical difference in 'measured intelligence'
* The measurement of intelligence is extremely subjective - contrary to popular belief, there is no 'standard IQ test'
* Comparisons with sporting capability are irrelevant - nobody has ever suggested that a person should not have the right to stand for parliament because he can't run fast, but a perceived lack of intelligence has been used to justify disenfranchisement throughout history.
* The same tests which purport to show that Africans have lower intelligence also show that Asians have higher intelligence. This is not really relevant, but its fun to see the reactions of white supremacists when you point this out.
I see a few comments supporting the lawsuit by Bowen believing the judges decision was wrong, but banning words like 'rape' from trials is common - and rightly so.
In "A tale told by an idiot," Chris refers to the judges decision as a 'travesty of justice.' This is nonsense. Refering to the woman as a victim implies that the defendant is guilty, as does refering to their encounter as a rape. And your mention of murder trials? Should we introduce the defendant as 'the Murderer'? I suppose if we could just assume a verdict then it would save us the cost of actually holding trials.
It is impossible to expect people to be completely rational and unbiased in a case involving alleged sexual assault, and the media is well aware of the public outrage these cases generate, giving publicity to allegations without any regard for the reputations they might ruin. The decision to ban the use of words like 'rape' was clearly an attempt by the judge to afford the defendant some measure of the principle: 'innocent until proven guilty.'
I see comments about the stupidity of the human race and vexatious lawsuits. But looking at the handwritten complaint all I can picture is some drunk guy conjuring up a lawsuit using the contents of his wallet as exhibits. I bet he's laughing his ass off at all the fuss he's caused.
It is all well and good to argue that the law has been broken.
The problem I have with this story is that ANY amount of law enforcement resources are being used to persue this man, when we all know damned well that if one of us is mugged in the street then the chances of a conviction (let alone a 30 month prison term) are practically zero.
Protecting corporate profits should not be the priority of law enforcement agencies, at least not while there are real crimes being commited against people all the time.
Do they seriously expect to take DNA from visitors to the UK? What will this do to the tourism industry? Just picture the queues at Heathrow, and the indignation of foreigners being treated like criminals.
And how will they get DNA samples from residents? Are they going to round us all up and stick swabs in our mouths?
It's interesting to hear just how many people would blindly accept this, but the whole debate about whether it violates our rights is irrelevant because the idea (at least in its present form) is simply unworkable.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
