pete_darby

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• Commented on How to speed read
  I am an amateur actor, and trying to write my first screenplay. I can't help thinking this would be a really, REALLY bad habit to get into for anyone trying to avoid a tin ear for dialogue. Your scripts would...
• Commented on 80 year old wind up bear polishes his spectacles, over and over and Over
  Darren #1: that mechanism was used to provide tony head's performance in the first three seasons of buffy. Apart from that... If this isn't revived and marketed as "OCD Bear", there is no justice. "Never clean enough... never clean enough..."...
• Commented on Preternaturally Verbose Infant Instigates Spontaneous Outbreak of Lulz (video)
  Hmmm... my daughter said "lubloo" in response to "love you" when pre-verbal, so the "lublublub" makes a leeeeeeeetle but of sense to me. But yeah, the best thing is the look on her face when dad starts laughing. "Dammit, I'm...
• Commented on Quote: Sony Pictures CEO on the value of the internet
  Really? REALLY? Let's see Sony Pictures function with their internet access removed for one day then....
• Commented on Was 1971 the best year to be born a geek?
  I was born a week after Cory (and am thus exactly 7 days younger, better looking and more dynamic than him). Koster is right. Deal with your pain all those not born in 1971....
• Commented on Pirate Bay defendants found guilty, sentenced to jail
  (standard joke alert.. already done this on twitter and the register...) Sent down for two years? I reckon they'll actually be available long before the official release date. Sorry. But in other news... what are the proposed terms for disbursing...
• Commented on British local governments deploy anti-teenager pink lights designed to make kids ashamed of their appearance
  In Canterbury, when they redesigned the bus station, they replace nice, wide, flat benches (that supported you while waiting for the increasingly infrequent buses, that old people and children were comfortable with, that provided a place to rest shopping and...
• Commented on How Children Fail: angry lessons from failures to teach
  And after Holt, you may be wondering how the education systems in the US and Europe got like that... John Taylor Gatto, while he was New York State Teacher of the Year, quit his job to find out. You can...
• Commented on HarperCollins' Authonomy -- an open slushpile
  Errm, IANAL, but isn't the act of "putting it on a website" actually publishing, in a legal sense? There's no difference, from a copyright POV, from HarperCollins putting out squiggles on dead trees to me putting squiggles on a screen...
• Commented on Elderly woman prohibited from photographing empty swimming pool "to prevent paedophilia"
  @1 RRSafety; Check this page and especially the sources... note that the harm to children they are talking about is not exclusively from their peers, but also those acting in loco parentis. Yup, the vast majority of teachers do not...
• Commented on Boing Boing's Moderation Policy (Archived)
  Orbus @593: actually, I think Disemvowelling is aggressive, not P-A. As in "We are treating you as a troll because you're behaving like a troll, TTYF*!" P-A behaviour would be posting "Wow - That's an amazingly passive-agressive term..." in parentheses...
• Commented on Exclusive: One-of-a-kind official <i>Blade Runner</i> "Spinner" car from LEGO
  Geekgasm. That is all....
• Commented on British tax authority lost 25 million households records because privacy isn't a priority there
  "However, when there are so many islands of information and so many data transfers going on, and while simple guidance is not available to staff, further data loss nonetheless remains a distinct possibility and more needs to be done." Hmm......
• Commented on Anti-kid modifications to public steps
  It's like the seats you get in UK bus stations now, specifically designed to "discourage vagrants"... which mean you get a bus station, where the passengers are often elderly, having to sit on seats that are designed to be uncomfortable...
• Commented on Steamy tell-all memoir by a Disneyland "Jack Sparrow"
  arkizzle: mutual survivors of costumed gropage: she was Jerry, I was Tom, we have a FANTASTIC story for the grandkids (pending, since our kids are 6 and 9)...
• Commented on Steamy tell-all memoir by a Disneyland "Jack Sparrow"
  Having worked as a costumed character... everybody in a costume gets hit on. Hell, I was dressed as Tom (from Tom & Jerry) on an Irish Sea Ferry, and I got groped... as did the girl who was playing Jerry....
• Commented on AntiPhormLite confounds BT's spyware by simulating random browsing
  Chaff would help a GREAT deal along with encryption, especially encrypted chaff as well. Ensures that not only do you have an unreadable signal, but the signal is also inside a lot of noise. Could help a lot with disguising...
• Commented on Ronald Searle's original dark, weird and hilarious St Trinian's comics
  Point of order sir: the redoubtable Mr Searle was merely the illustrator of the grate Molesworth books, the author was the late, great Geoffrey Willans... ... as any fule kno....
• Commented on Database leaks are as immortal and toxic as nuclear spills -- let's start acting like it
  Dammit Cory, you posted the link right after I used the Build A Data Breach Bear case to develop my own data analogy: *Darby's first rule of data: Personal data is like glitter in a kids craft box. It WILL...
• Commented on Proposal to extend Euro copyright, and to force ISPs to spy on customers dies! EPIC FAIL!
  Are both links supposed to go back to the BB article? Do we have Danny's report online yet? #2 - current media industry lobbyists are made of fail, though. We are all teh winnar. #3 - tell me about it:...
• Commented on What would it be like to be the last person on Earth?
  Anyone else find it odd that, apparently, without human activity, rivers will become unsafe to drink when sewage treatment plants go offline......
• Commented on Top ten most viewed pages on Wikipedia and Conservapedia
  All I want to do is pass on my colleague's comment that Gay Bowel Syndrome should be the opposite of Irritable Bowel Syndrome. It's where you spontaneously fart jaunty show tunes....
• Commented on Magazine back issues on DVD
  More CD-rom magazine goodness: http://www.forteantimes.com/front_website/cdrom/ Pretty much the whole of the Fortean Times, IIRC, Searchable, indexed PDF's. http://www.amazon.com/Victor-Technologies-2021139-Magazine-Archive/dp/B00002EIWS Dragon Magazine, up to about five years ago....