tim

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• Commented on Scientist explains why climate scientists talk trash
  Cut and pasted from Reuters - Sen. Inhofe, meanwhile, lauded the timing of the incident. "The interesting part of this is it's happening right before Copenhagen. And, so, the timing couldn't be better. Whoever is on the ball in Great...
• Commented on Apple patents anti-user attention-complianceware
  If you work out how to do something that you don't want to see being done, and that thing is patentable, and you are in a position to get a patent, then why wouldn't you? That way you can prevent...
• Commented on Rupert Murdoch vows to take all of Newscorp's websites out of Google, abolish fair use, tear heads off of adorable baby animals
  Please, Google, just stop displaying newscorpse sites for say a week just to let them know how effective it would be. Call it an experiment in how things would be if they got their wish....
• Commented on A geeky introduction to cheap remote control helicopters and planes
  Yes, a Slow Stick can be fun. I had a couple myself some years ago when R/C prices were much higher - hobbycity is certainly stirring things up in the market and I've recently equipped a 72" wingspan scale Yak-54...
• Commented on A geeky introduction to cheap remote control helicopters and planes
  Please take a look at one of the more informative webforums such as http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/index.php to get some half-decent information. You don't get a sensible R/C model for $100 any more than you'll get a real Rolex for a bargain price...
• Commented on The Hard Questions of Climate Change
  Sea ice area may possibly be similar to older levels but it's worth remembering that the amount of ice is the integral of area and depth, plus minor corrections for density. If you melt a load of thick ice and...
• Commented on Watch What You Say About Welsh
  'no words for modern things' is a wonderfully stupid complaint coming from speakers of a language that (paraphrasing pTerry) doesn't just borrow words from other languages, it follows them down dark alleys and mugs them to steal any useful bits...
• Commented on HD TV and the placebo effect
  As explained to me many years ago by a BBC video engineer - NTSC -> Never Twice the Same Colour SECAM -> Surely Europeans Can Achieve More PAL -> Pictures At Last....
• Commented on Portable office built into a steamer trunk
  a movable workspace you can take on the QEII or sail off with on a zeppelin Err, QE2 is now permanently laid up in Dubai so you might have a bit of a problem with that. And last time I...
• Commented on Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Burqini
  Aman Ali said: But I don't think any government has a right to tell people how to dress Given the context of the original piece, I'd like to ask if you think it acceptable for a religion to tell people...
• Commented on Open Rights Group forum on proposal to cut British households off from the net if one member is accused of illegal downloads
  The proposed law provides for collective punishment. As a general rule collective punishment is a principle that really ought not be followed. You'd think that after the recent scandals about expenses British MPs might have some understanding of the issue....
• Commented on Short video about Big Bang
  I took a class about science once. The first step of the scientific method is "Observe something." Evidently you need to retake that class and follow it up with some more. Maybe eat some fish to improve the ol'brain? Just...
• Commented on Big-ass flying boats full of water save LA from fiery doom!
  See http://www.martinmars.com/aircraft.htm and http://www.travbuddy.com/travel-blogs/16338/Martin-Mars-Waterbombers-on-Sproat-Lake-Port-Alberni-1 for some details. These beasties live (normally) in the lake across the mountain from my place. It's not that uncommon to see them roaring across the sky. Hmm, let's see if the google earth placemark will...
• Commented on Jesus in caked-on cooking grease
  It's obviously Kusari and Bun-bun...
• Commented on Virginia, the Blind Dog
  My wife's dog ( a golden retriever) went blind overnight in 2000 - I think it was a y2k bug in the cpu - and never really seemed bothered by it in the least. She lived until this time last...
• Commented on Ads as Soulcatchers
  I'm sure the churches that use this have noble intentions, but there's just something profoundly creepy about it all. (and ref. #12 above) No. Churches do not have good intentions. And yes, there is something profoundly creepy about all of...
• Commented on If Advertisers Were Supervillains, or Vice Versa
  Whaddya mean "if"? Do you not read your own blog? http://www.boingboing.net/2009/07/21/flashback-to-1933-us-1.html...
• Commented on Video of the first moon landing, 40 years ago today
  I was 9. We had the second colour TV in our village and at various times during the mission we had up to 100 kids in our living room watching it. The school had tvs on pretty much all the...
• Commented on High-ranking insurance PR flack defects, explains dirty tricks used to fight universal healthcare
  Hutton's original post - Regarding the comment by Anonymous about there not being enough households earning over $250K/year to fund universal health care - since they comprise about 2% of all households in America, that means that each houshold above...
• Commented on High-ranking insurance PR flack defects, explains dirty tricks used to fight universal healthcare
  households earning over $250K/year to fund universal health care - since they comprise about 2% of all households in America, From http://www.factcheck.org (and I have no particular idea whether they are especially believable, but what the hell, since when did...
• Commented on History of pantyhose
  In 1968 the mini skirt came in, and there was no way to keep stockings up without a lot of underwear showing You say that like it's a bad thing? In 1968 I was 8. I was at just a...
• Commented on Byte Magazine, August 1981
  The balloon idea came from Dan Ingalls as a metaphor for Smalltalk flying away from the ivory tower that had been depicted in a previous Byte language special edition as the mysterious Island of Smalltalk, just off the edge of...
• Commented on Myths about Canadian healthcare
  @ #33 davidasposted: Your education wasn't free; someone else just paid for it. And in due course david will pay for someone else's education, assuming he is in a position where he is earning enough to be paying taxes. In...
• Commented on TV preacher proves that only the Christian god is real
  here are a lot of good arguments for Christianity Really? Name six....
• Commented on The Great Leap Backward: will computer makers kowtow to Beijing's censorware demands?
  China's just being more open about the censorship. Pretty much every government is trying to implement the same regime. The answer? Botnets that infect all the censorware polluted machines and disable and/or spoof it....
• Commented on Stiglitz: America's double-standard on economic crises infuriates the poor world
  #9 POSTED BY ZUZU, JUNE 12, 2009 2:50 AM A good economic system must: Wrong. Economics is descriptive, not prescriptive. Wrong - or perhaps more accurately , irrelevant. Whilst the pseudo-science of economics should be descriptive (and analytical and predictive...
• Commented on D&D-style map of C++
  C++ is history repeated as tragedy. Java is history repeated as farce. Java: the best argument for Smalltalk since C++...
• Commented on Delving into the psyche of men who buy exfoliant advertised for use after mother-daughter threeways
  Twins are harder work than you might imagine....
• Commented on Prop Hate
  Easy solution; just ban marriage completely. Everyone is treated as an individual by all forms of law and govt. People wanting to join their fortunes, lives and /or families execute a corporate merger....
• Commented on London Times on the Honda Insight: "Biblically terrible"
  Clarkson is very good at the tortured phrase, and stars in the best tv comedy show (possibly excluding 'coupling') ever but really, nobody should take his opinions anymore seriously than one would those of conservapedia, or wingnut daily, or similar....