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Comment Re:That makes me take him MORE seriously (Score 0) 573

I lost interest in GP about the same time Moore and the other scientist founders left in disgust. Their anti-GMO campaign is a perfect example, it's just as intellectually dishonest as the anti-AGW campaign from the FF industry. I don't agree with Moore here, I think he's an old man who's been mislead/misinformed, but he is correct when he says greenpeace have been putting politics before science for the last 30yrs.

Comment Re:Hasn't been involved with Greenpeace since 1985 (Score 1) 573

The IPCC's objective is to "change the weather", do you realise how monumentally ignorant that statement is? Science is not groupthink, it's just politically and financially inconvenient for some. I admire Patrick Moore and Jane Goodall but Patrick is wrong about AGW, and Jane is wrong about GMO's. Being a genius doesn't automatically make you immune to anti-science propaganda.

Comment Re:now this is new (Score 2) 49

When I went for my taxi license back in the 80's it was;
1. Pee in a cup. 2. Find an address in a street directory. 3. Calculate a split fare. 4. Memorise a handful of regulations, must display license, what to do if customer refuses to pay, etc.

Shit job, shit pay, but if driving a cab doesn't teach you how to handle random arseholes, nothing will.

despite all signs pointing the other way

If you read the statistical "signs" they all say the cab driver is in far more peril than the passenger.

Comment Re:This is why I always use Uber (Score 2) 49

They quote you a price and try and charge you more

I drove cabs for 3yrs, never, ever, gave "quotes", I gave estimates but made it clear you were on the meter since half of what was on the meter wasn't mine to give away in the first place. Very rarely someone would give you a big bill to drive their elderly mum home, in those cases the meter wasn't switched on ;)

Comment I choose SQLite (Score 1) 320

AFAIK, the most popular RDBMS by installed base is still SQLite which the authors released into the public domain many years ago. It won't keep up with oracle's performance on very large data sets but it's a hell of lot less complex to set up, and as you say most business/consumer applications simply don't need the performance (and price tag) of something like Oracle or MSSQL.

Comment Re:With Uber at least there is tracking and identi (Score 3, Insightful) 82

"police are searching for driver"

Apples to Orangutans - Uber don't have "walk ups", a fair comparison would be between Uber and a booked taxi.

Do Uber have hidden mics, panic buttons, and radio code words for trouble? Taxi's in Oz had all those things when I was a driver back in the 80's, nowadays they also have cameras. Everyone talks about passenger safety, the fact is drivers are at least an order of magnitude more likely to be attacked than the passenger.

Comment Re: It is time to get up one way or the other (Score 5, Interesting) 1089

Preferential voting gets some strange results, we have it here in Oz and it is not uncommon to see someone get into the senate who had less that 5% of the primary vote. This often gives a handful of independent the balance of power, meaning when ever the two major parties disagree in the senate the only vote that counts is that of the independents. After half a century of this I'm still not sure if it's a good thing or not, independents are more often than not fringe dwellers, radicals, and religious nutters.

Compulsory voting doesn't bring good governance (as the current mod proves on a daily basis), however it does do a very good job of capturing what the whole country thinks on election day. The fines are trivial and it's very rare for them to be issued, let alone enforced, yet we always have a turnout well above 90%. Also why does the US insist on having an election on a Tuesday when everyone is at work, that's just fucking bizarre, it's like you don't want societies grunts to turn up.

Comment Re:Free market will sort it out (Score 1) 254

Drugs and sex slaves are both illegal now, if you legalise drugs how on Earth does that affect the current demand for sex slaves? Do you expect junkies to wake up the day after prohibition is lifted and think to themselves - "Now that I have legal drugs, I can save my pennies for that sex slave I've always wanted"?

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