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Comment Re:X-men (Score 1) 324

I also saw Waiting For Godot earlier this year.
I can safely say that I will never see a cast as great as that in my life. They pushed Simon Callow (no small actor) to third billing and this was outside of London.
It was a joy to behold, McKellen and Stewart had a brilliant chemistry. If Ian deserves a knighthood for simply acting (I know he had done a lot of gays rights campaigning to add to that) then Patrick is as deserving an actor.

Although I must admit that his work in ST:TNG should count towards the honour of his career. He was probably the first actor to really show that it didn't have to be costume drama for masterful acting in popular television, and this lead to good actors getting leading roles in prime-time shows. As a sibling poster OpenGLFan points out, it was clear that at times the writers and producers were simply writing episodes to show his skill off.
For selling the RSC and British acting to the world he deserves his Knighthood.

PS - if in the future he does an Ibsen play, see it. I also saw him magnificently lead in The Master Builder.

Comment Re:Yep, I think long term trainers agree (Score 1) 188

That's interesting, it sounds like the USAF (I'm assuming you serve for) has a much tougher fitness test than the RAF one. The RAF basic fitness level is piss easy to meet.
I'm a little confused though, you need to run a quarter mile in 12 and a half minutes? That can't be right, do you mean a mile and a half (about 2.5km) in 12 and a half minutes?
You're totally right about the necessity of sleep. Sleep is definitely something I would benefit from having more of. When you exercise a lot, you need more sleep to recover and good rest is actually what you need more of to develop.
The problem is finding the time to sleep, work doesn't seem to be the best place!

The irony is I'm logging three places (on line, paper workout logs, and iPhone GPS "MotionX" app)

What are you logging with each? I wonder if the blessed Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS with the heart rate monitor belt records much of what you are recording. But it's difficult to say without knowing what you are noting.

PS - good luck getting through the fitness test. For speeding up the pace over shorter distances, perhaps training with someone quicker than you might help. Weights can certainly help if targeted correctly, might I suggest a good fitness instructor who knows their plyometrics.

Comment Re:Minimalism (Score 1) 188

Why do you want to know how far you have been?

A: If I want to run say 6 miles I know what route/circuit will do that.
B: If I'm training for a race then I may want to reach a certain distance as part of that training.
C: It's really nice to know that even though I'm tired I've still done 10k or however far I've been. It can be a pick-me-up.

Or you could read the mile markers.

Some roads round here may date back to Roman times but oddly most streets, lanes and pathways don't have mile markers set up for the exact course I'm running. They only seem to do that when it's an organised race.

Comment Re:Garmin Edge 705 (Score 1) 188

Ditto the Forerunner 205. I have one
I've used it since my Polar heart rate monitor died for the second time. The watch works well, uploading to your computer easily and the software is very good (not too much extra bumpf). It will export output straight to Google Earth (using understandable XML). I think they provide drivers for both Mac and Windows and the history can be exported very easily.

The only point I would make is that the Forerunner 205 obviously doesn't do anything indoors being only a GPS device, the 305 does as it has a heart rate monitor. A heart rate monitor would be more effective if the article submitter 'identity0' is doing a lot of work in the gym that he/she wants to record (foot pods can record indoors).

Comment Re:Minimalism (Score 2, Interesting) 188

I run and feel good running.
I also want to know how far I've been and gone. I could draw the map on Google Earth or a paper map and get an approximation OR I could just read the distance and time off of the Garmin Forerunner on my arm to get the most accurate measurement.
The reason we want the records is so that we can work out which route will take me (or us) so far.

Having a goal, short and/or long term, is by far the best motivator to keep human beings going, whether you enjoy something or not. RPGs understand this with levelling up. Some of us just want to be the best we can be from ourselves - competitive yes, but humans *are* competitive beings.

Being competitive with others or setting goals for yourself is the most effective way to get something out of exercise. If I don't have a race coming up, even 6 months ahead, I lose motivation to get out there. I know I'm not alone in this. I don't think it is strange to want to run the next one quicker, I would find it strange to run for 6 years and not want to get any better during that time.

But it seems less pure than simply going for a hike, a run, or living some free weights.

I agree going for a hike should be about the stroll and enjoying the outdoors. But a scientific exercise such as lifting weights without a plan of what you are trying to achieve is a pointless exercise that will end up with you wasting your time. The specific counting (kgs, reps, sets) is the whole idea.

Comment Re:Recent Stonehenge Excavations (Score 4, Informative) 152

Of course the other local secret we don't tell people is that Stonehenge isn't half as good as Avebury, about 30 miles North of Stonehenge. If anyone is going to have a look at stone circles and old mysterious things. I would say that the better place is the one with the pub in the middle - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avebury.

Comment Re:Why do so many people...? (Score 3, Interesting) 227

The Swedish king Karl XI has this figured out already in the 17th century when he organised his forces so that people would fight side-by-side with brothers, cousins and people from the same region as you are from. This improved morale and made people less likely to flee the battlefield as you knew you could depend on, and wanted to support loved ones.

That's interesting because the British did a similar thing in World War one and it proved to be a disaster. Men from the same communities were encouraged to join up together, in the same regiments, called "The Pals" I believe. The problem was that they were posted to the same parts of the front line. While they got to spend time with their close friends, they all went over the top together and thus an entire village could lose all of its men between the ages of 17-40 in the space of one minute.
This I guess is illustrative of something else that had changed in warfare by 1914.

Comment Re:Obviously IANAL or a USian (Score 1) 232

Each District (and Circuit) has procedural rules, which may or may not be favourable to the conduct of certain types of cases

Thanks, I think I see.
Is this just for civil proceedings or criminal ones? It just seems to me to be inherently unjust to have the outcome of a case be literally influenced by the location of the proceedings.

Comment Re:Obviously IANAL or a USian (Score 2, Interesting) 232

Thanks that does help. If I understand correctly elevation acts as the moderation, why doesn't this happen more often to prevent this court being such a troll haven? Or is it just that lots of patent lawyers remain (the sibling post by maroberts surmises)

PS I'm not saying that I beleive a single system should entriely govern 300 million people but if something is determined at the national level then the application of that should be consistent across the nation. Impossible I know but it seems this place is blatantly out of line with the rest of the country, perhaps even trying to be so. The federal authorities should at least be trying to prevent what we call here in Britain "a postcode lottery".

Comment Obviously IANAL or a USian (Score 2, Interesting) 232

Can someone who is knowledgeable about patent law explain to me how one district in the US can be so appealing for this kind of ligitgation when another is not?
I was under the impression that patents are awarded federally, however it seems that the actions are being taken at a very specific locality which is widely considered more sympathetic than everywhere else, rather than a national or federal court.
This seems very strange to me, surely the legal position on a federal issue should be consistent across the nation. Or the verdicts across low level courts should be able to be 'moderated'.

Comment Re:You're damn right it is too broad (Score 2, Interesting) 232

The good thing is that Blizzard should have enough resources to blow that patent out of the water.

And Microsoft didn't?
One would assume that M$ (only using the $ for relevance) found that it would be simpler and cheaper to just pay a (probably) small fee than spend years in court al la SCO. Therefore Blizzard probably would do the same, although this isn't core business to Microsoft but *is* to Blizzard so they might want to defend.
Perhaps it's because companies don't fight these claims often enough, that software patents continue to eat up our sanity.

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