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Comment Re:Should they get off tax-free? (Score 4, Insightful) 511

If they make no money to speak of and give most of that to (tax deductable) charities then spend the rest on (tax deductable) running costs then I doubt that their tax bill is going to be very high. The admin for it would increase running costs though (tax deductably). If they have an accountant in their flock they should be able to get it gratis, surely :)

Comment Re:It all depends (Score 1) 145

I don't think the OP is talking about lisps and stutters.

We've all seen the family out to dinner with mum and dad staring into space and the kids totally absorbed by their Nintendos. The prevalence of modern technology has created massive problems in the development of language skills in kids because it has made it so easy for them to avoid conversation.

It's a skill that has to be practiced just like everything else.

It becomes a vicious cycle as the child grows older - they know their speech isn't good, so they continue to avoid situations where it is necessary.

I've heard of otherwise normally intelligent teenagers who cannot express frighteningly simple things like "I like the way she looks in that dress" without a lot of effort. They speak like you would expect someone to speak after learning a foreign language for about three weeks - they have to think about the words and the order of the words, and they make stuff up that sounds plausible to cover the fact they know they are getting it wrong.

Computer games are part of the problem and I don't think they can be more than a minor part of the solution as theses kids need to learn the visual aspects of communication as well - body language and facial expressions. These people need face to face interaction that involves cooperative problem solving to encourage them to talk.

Reasonably complex board games are probably good - games like Risk maybe? I also think that something like D&D would probably be great for people with this sort of problem.

Comment Re:Of course it has (Score 1) 623

I'd rather be a lawyer. At least then I'd still be getting rich doing crap work.

Don't count on it. I did the switch from IT to law... and now all I keep hearing about is these new companies being set up in India full of Harvard grads whose student visas ran out and who are maximising the low cost of living in India by offering to do all your legal paperwork at half the cost that a local lawyer can do it - ie, all the work normally done by junior lawyers.

These are people who for the most part have their law degrees from good universities in whatever country they're getting their work from, so they're just as good as any local lawyer for any work that doesn't actually involve showing up in person (ie, about 95% of legal work).

The legal industry is changing in the same way that IT has changed - less elegant customised solutions, more trying to hammer "out of the box" stuff into shape. I predict a serious downgrading of junior lawyer salaries in the near future - accompanied by a reduction in the number of positions made available in countries like the USA, UK, Australia etc.

Comment Re:Criminal Intent ! (Score 2, Informative) 214

Since this all happened in Victoria, the relevant offence is Unauthorised access, modification or impairment with intent to commit serious offence
and/or Unauthorised modification of data to cause impairment

According to that, the state of being "unauthorised" refers to entitlement, ie legal entitlement, rather than any sense of software authorisation (which a few people have rather misguidedly suggested is a valid interpretation).

Comment Re:"Why is the sky blue?" - Not so easy... (Score 1) 656

So blue light is smaller than red light.

Say you've got a blue Mini and a big red Humvee driving along an empty road, and they come to a patch where the road condition is bad - lots of pot holes, lumps and so on. The Humvee can just power right on over it, but the little blue Mini has to go around all of the pot holes. Because of that, the further through the rough patch the two cars have gone, the further off route the Mini has had to go, until it's ended up going in another direction entirely.

Comment Re:If it's within the rules, it's within the rules (Score 1) 895

is no law against me walking up to your mother and calling her a cunt, and I would not want to live in a place that had such a law

Um, actually, in most parts of the planet there are laws such as "use offensive language" that are designed to prevent you from doing just that. Mind you, they're usually only enforced if and when people swear at actual police officers (there's a concept known as the "trifecta" in my jurisdiction - use offensive language, assault police and resist arrest - most people who get charged with one seem to end up being charged with all three).

Comment Re:But how long will it last? (Score 1) 459

Yes, because westerners who think multi-racial people are good looking (and naturally it is only westerners - no easterners could possibly think such a thing) are going to round up everyone who is monoracial and force them, at gun point if neccessary, to only breed with people from other mono-racial or mixed-racial backgrounds in order that their offspring can conform to this ideal.

Upgrades

Submission + - n00b fails to become English's 1,000,000th Word 2

Caity writes: According to The Global Language Monitor, Web 2.0 became the 1,000,000th word to enter the English language at 10:22 on June 10th 2009 (GMT). n00b came in at 999,998.

Officially, in order to enter the official lexicon, a word requires a minimum of 25,000 citations with a certain breadth of geographic distribution. Citation sources include the blogosphere and Twitter.

Comment Re:Cain ate Abel (Score 1) 502

Just because two myths are similar doesn't by any stretch mean that they refer to the same historical event though.

Two brothers get in a big fight? - oh gee, that hardly ever happens.

Funnily enough, a lot of myths are pretty obvious and direct rip offs of each other too. Don't forget that there have been trade routes all the way across Eurasia for a very very long time.

Comment Re:sounds like vegimite (Score 1) 410

Oddly, the best way to acquire it as an adult (should you want to) is to have it on toasted turkish bread (with margarine).

I've tested this theory on a number of immigrants, many of whom had had previous bad experiences with the black stuff. Most have ended up with "turkish veg" as their "I was running late for work and had to get breakfast at a cafe" breakfast.

Comment Re:Just a few cents of advice (not an actual value (Score 1) 287

As far as I understand it, attorney-client privilege is stronger than doctor-client privilege -- in fact, I'm not sure if there IS a stronger commitment our laws have to privacy and confidentiality.

Very true. Inadvertantly releasing privileged information does not necessarily waive the privilege and it doesn't waive it for all contexts. The courts will (in most circumstances) recognise a genuine stuff up and prevent the other party using the document or the information gained from it.

Having information and being able to use it in court are two very different things.

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