then you right a book that asks 'Are dogs telepathic'

This is, of course, after a diligent search for such a book that is upside down.

Yeah, I was in that boat too until doing a bit more research. It looks like the name's last gasp was the TriCaster VT[5], where "VT" stood for "Video Toaster".

The TriCaster is the direct descendant of the Video Toaster. The last hardware product called "Video Toaster" was the Video Toaster Screamer, a MIPS-based machine sold in 1993.

This is an extremely childish and anachronistic viewpoint. Newton entertained many unscientific notions alongside those which bore fruit; the scientific method was an invention of his generation. We owe an incalculable amount of our understanding of the universe to philosophy, and selective ignorance of history changes nothing.

Above all else, the classical scholars gave the Renaissance scientists an intellectual authority with which to question the world; it is absolutely absurd to suggest they were ignored. Aristotle's impact went much further than the details of his assumptions about physical motion.

More to the point, however, they would still be much better basketball players.

Aristotle was (almost) Newton's direct predecessor in understanding of the physical world; it is certain that Newton would have read his writings due to the Renaissance. Newton would be annoyed if he were left off the court.

Moreover, while we don't know much about Aristotle's personal life, Socrates was formerly a soldier and Plato was a seasoned wrestler. It was typical in golden-age Athens for the intellectual to also be physically fit.

In short, the physicists would get schooled, much like the jive suckers of old.

...and now I'm wondering how old a thread has to be before people with mod points leave it for dead.

I'm not sure one's ever been done—although there is this, although it seems impossible to rely upon and, given the nature of the site's core audience, is certain to leave out all tinfoil hat wearers.

Compare the familiarity of the following statements: "Ubuntu is a Linux distribution" vs. "Ubuntu is a GNU distribution" vs. "Ubuntu is a version of Linux."

Remind me how many people died in the boston bombings again? How did or could guns have helped there exactly?

Remind me how well your firearms trained campus cop fared against the two brothers responsible again?

If we had US gun laws then this would've looked a lot less like a random murder and a whole lot more like an Anders Breivik massacre, so no, how about we don't have US style gun laws here.

The fact the most these guys could muster was a rusty pistol that they appeared to have managed to make little use of and a bunch of knives meaning this was only a one victim attack is actually a vindication of the fact that our gun laws are pretty effective. If even determined killers can't get more than a knackered rusty pistol between two of them then great, our laws are working really well.

British politics has no room for scientific method though because of the way our ill thought out democracy is built (FPTP and so forth) it inevitably descends into a war of populist arguments. The US is arguably even more extreme again in this respect because it's also an inevitable result of the two part state - when you have only two parties realistically competing for power the ultimate result is that you have the two sides sliding towards opposing extremes in their arguments because there are no other parties to offer different ideas that would force a degree of moderation.

I know a lot of people aren't keen on the Lib Dems but there rise at the last election was probably one of the healthiest things to happen to British politics in a long time - for all the things they've done wrong there's little question they have moderated the impact of the Tories somewhat at least and it's why I hope for a coalition next election with Labour (as opposed to a Labour or Tory majority that is anyway).

Healthy democracy requires greater plurality than a mere two parties fighting over 100% of the power.

"There were plenty of cases of Germans attacking the Third Reich, more obviously there were several attempts by Germans to assassinate Hitler. That didn't make WWII a civil war. Just an international war with some within the country opposed to it."

This is absolutely true but the problem is that had those Germans assassinated people in their own country it would not have been an act of war but would've been murder.

This is the fundamental distinction at play here, unless it's a civil war you cannot be a member of a country and kill your country men and it be an act of war, it by definition has to be murder. You may see other charges thrown in like "aiding the enemy" but it still can't be defined as an act of war and I believe that's the GP's point.

"Software developers that insist that it cannot be done are simply (i) inexperienced, or (ii) do not know what they are doing and need to not be doing software."

Oh do fuck off. Software developers that insist it can be done are simply inexperienced and unaware of the bugs that actually do exist in their software. See how that works? It's called the no true scotsman fallacy.

Yes I agree more experience means better estimation, but it's still estimation, and therein lies the problem - estimation is not a guarantee of correctness, it's by definition, just an estimate.

The only way software developers manage to hit time targets is simply by giving themselves plenty of leeway by overestimating, and sure you can get a rough idea over time of roughly how long things may take, if you have a number of estimates to stick together it may be that you overestimate some and underestimate others but on average hit a happy balance and that's great, providing those tasks do not change, but therein lies the problem. You estimated 2 weeks for translation support, but guess what? they found an ambiguity in the spec that allows them to gouge out of you full blown internationalisation. Suddenly your estimate is meaningless.

Your blabber about contract is still completely ignorant of the way the real world works. It's pretty clear from your comments that you've always just worked as a developer and never actually acted in a client facing capacity - guess what, I have and I've delivered and delivered with happy clients and a healthy profit margin, that's why I know for certain that I've managed to figure out what degree of leeway to give and not give, but also why constant contract negotiation and haggling is not the solution unless you want to piss the customer off because it's utterly inefficient for both parties.

"And, FYI, the Defense Industry operates on this very principle. The US Government puts out an RFP; contractors respond with their proposals; one of them wins, and then immediately renegotiates the proposal before any work is actually done. They seem to be doing very well."

You couldn't have picked a worse example, public sector, and the military in particular in both the UK and US (and probably much of the world in fact) are notorious for suffering project overruns, poor budgeting and poor planning. They only seem to be doing very well if you completely and utterly ignore the massive cost overruns that the world's militaries are absolutely famous for.

"And ultimately, if they don't want to do it - then they're not worth having as a customer either as it will impose undue risk on you and your own business."

This is one thing I somewhat agree on, as I said in a different post you have two options - you either have a client that you have a trustworthy relationship with where they'll gladly accept to pay for some changes when it's their fault as long as you fix bugs where it's your fault without dicking around with contract negotiation, or you work on a time and materials model where you charge them for fixed blocks of work for example by using Scrum and charging them per spring giving them a rough estimate of initial sprints, giving them visibility of the backlog and letting them increase/decrease the number of sprints as they see fit to get the required number of features they want and also giving them visibility of the impact on the backlog of changes as and when they make them. If you have neither of these then yes, walk away because it means you're dealing with a customer that wants more out of you than they're willing to pay for.

Software just isn't as fixed as you're making out, specs aren't as fixed as your making out, it's a far more fluid process than you're implying and the impact of the fluidity is larger the longer the project runs. If it's a two year project the clients business needs may even have changed somewhat such that it by definition has to be fluid to be of any use to the client in the first place. You have to plan for that one way or another and it's the responsibility of a good software team (not just the developers but sales, project management and so forth) to recognise that and offer it to the client as standard. Getting them to sign off on a fixed spec knowing full well their requirements may not be identical in 2 years time then grabbing them by the balls and forcing them into contract renegotiation when this reality hits them is great for short term gain - if they don't just scrap the project that is, but you'll never see them again afterwards and your reputation as a business will suffer.

They weren't killing for the sake of the love of the slaughter, they were killing for the same reason any other gangbanger kills - for "respect".

These are people with nothing in their lives, bought up in violent neighbourhoods surrounded by knife and gun crime and frequent stabbings and sought fame in the only way these sorts of people know - more violence.

The government and media has given them exactly what they wanted, they've published the mobile phone footage of them chatting before the police turned up, the government has made it a "terrorist" incident adding unjustified validity to their claim that they were sending a message. Now there will be extremists who will praise them for "joining their cause" and giving them respect for it.

The fact they didn't kill others despite having had ample opportunity to do so demonstrates further why it wasn't terrorism. If it was terrorism they'd have killed innocent people too to, you know, spread terror. The fact they stood there talking to some woman shows that they just wanted to make the news, if it was about maximising terror, they'd have beheaded her too.

Actually that link you posted makes a good case for Wickr. Thank you.

Right, and Dale Cregan shot one female police officer as she knocked on a door, and shot the other in the back as she ran away and then threw a grenade between the two of them whilst they were still alive and desperately trying to crawl away.

You'll have to excuse me if I still don't exactly see the difference even when the level of barbarism is taken into account. Even Raul Moat walking up to a police officer whose sat pulled up in his car, sticking a shotgun in his face and pulling the trigger doesn't strike me as particularly free from barbarism.

I agree none of these are ordinary murders, they're particularly extreme murders, but neither case is any more terrorism than the other. There was extreme barbarism in each case, and there was a message in each case.