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Comment: Re:Well That Was a Depressing Read (Score 1) 388

by locust (#43154665) Attached to: Dr. Robert Bakker Answers Your Questions About Science and Religion

As an atheist, you embarrass me.

Inherently, science and religion are human endeavors, and tied into the evolution of human societies, the pursuit of power and so on. Given that, for a long time Men of God were the only ones with education, and with free time, it stands to reason that they would contribute to science. Remember, that they had power based on knowing things that were hidden from the rest of the populace. To deny, that for a long time, the clergy _were_ the scientists is risible, as is the discounting of their contributions.

Dr. Bakker's essay is a direct response to people like you... it is practically showing the contributions of people of faith to science. But you are too blinded by your hatred to see it.

Comment: Re:Three T's my ass (Score 2) 157

by locust (#41821289) Attached to: Telling the Truth In Today's China

Talk about the banality of evil.

Your censor, the police officer beating the crap out of you, the intelligence officer who orders your arrest, they're just doing their jobs. They're not evil. They're just doing a job. They're nice people really. If you're nice to them, maybe you'll change them.

Lets not even start talking about the blatant racism behind: 'Chinese up and English down'.

We in the 'west' have a lot of recent experience with this sort of thing, and experience has shown the consequences of that behavior. I promise you every argument trotted out by the communist party in china was trotted out by some tinpot soviet puppet, if not the soviets themselves. (or south american, or african, or wherever dictator). In the same way, you can replace White/Aryan with Chinese and get all the crap about up with China down with everyone else. We've seen it all, heard all the arguments, seen the results and come to the conclusion that the behavior is unacceptable.

We don't always live up to our ideals,real politic gets in the way, and we screwup - a lot. But those are the facts, and that what we try to stand for. China is not special, just another country where all the old tropes are trotted out to try to maintain power.

Comment: I would gladly pay the BBC licensing fee (Score 1) 373

by locust (#40844831) Attached to: US Viewers Using Proxies To Watch BBC Olympic Coverage

I would gladly pay the BBC so that I could watch (online, without cuts, delays, etc):

Topgear
BBC soccer coverage (especially the world cup).
Have I got news for you.
The BBC's 24 hour news channel
Etc.

The BBC is _exactly_ why I pay for XM. (That, and I just could not handle the drivel that passes for 'Fresh Air' on the drive home).

Comment: Re:So that's really why he gave up his citizenship (Score 1) 445

by locust (#40091177) Attached to: Facebook, Zuckerberg Sued Over IPO

In Canada you file to become a 'deemed non-resident' at which point, if the country in which you are living has a tax treaty with Canada they claim to work it out behind the scenes. It used to be that you had to file every year, but they got rid of that a long time ago, as it was just paper work. Once you became a 'deemed non-resident' they kept that status.

In order to become a 'deemed non-resident' you have to show that you severed major financial ties with Canada. For example, you can't own and rent out a home. If you do your world income becomes eligible for taxation.

(I could go on, but its been a while since I looked at this, and I'd hate to sound to informative).

Perl

+ - Perl sucks: we have proof->

Submitted by locust
locust writes "Hot off the presses from oopsla:

Researchers at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville have proven what a lot of us have already suspected: using perl is no better than using a language where the syntax and semantics are picked at random. The full paper is here

Let the flame wars begin."

Link to Original Source

Comment: Two years later... (Score 4, Informative) 547

by locust (#35674418) Attached to: Tesla Sues BBC's <em>Top Gear</em> For Libel

So here's what clarkson had to say at the time. From the times online:


Phone calls were made. Editorial policy wallahs were consulted. Experts were called in. No “i” was left undotted. No “t” was left uncrossed. No stone remained unturned in our quest for truth and decency.

Tesla could not complain about what was shown because it was there. And here’s the strange thing. It didn’t. But someone did. Loudly and to every newspaper in the world.
..

This was weird. Tesla, when contacted by reporters, gave its account of what happened and it was exactly the same as ours. It explained that the brakes had stopped working because of a blown fuse and didn’t question at all our claim that the car would have run out of electricity after 55 miles.

You would figure that if these claims were so outrageous, tesla would have contradicted them at the time.

Comment: uh.... maybe not (Score 5, Informative) 325

by locust (#34732964) Attached to: Android Text Messages Intermittently Going Astray

If a portion of your user population has enough trouble with your UI that they are 'fat fingering' their way into trouble, then at some point it is _your_ issue.

But that having been said, a quick glance through the support thread shows things like this: "http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/android/thread?tid=345259e6d424bad3&fid=345259e6d424bad300048dfbff785d0c&hltp=2"

The code reverses the numbers before doing its (loose) compare... so uses the 7 last digits.

Bob - 408-555-1234
Fred - 510-555-1234

become

4321-555-804
4321-555-015

And it only uses the first 7 digits, which for both numbers, is "4321555"...
So if you send a message to Fred, and it looks in the cache for the contact, there's a chance it will go to Bob.

Comment: Re:1 step forward, 2 steps back (Score 1) 652

by locust (#27560801) Attached to: Tesla CEO Says Gov't Loan Is 99% Sure and Deserved

You do realize that Top Gear admits to having faked the episode, right? It's an entertainment show; quit taking it so seriously.

Here's what Clarkson had to say about that particular canard:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/driving/jeremy_clarkson/article5483422.ece

The company claimed it could run, even if driven briskly, for 200 miles, but after just a morning the battery power was down to 20% and we realised that it would not have enough juice for all the shots we needed. ...
And to make matters worse, we had the BBC's new compliance directive hanging over us like an enormous suffocating blanket. We had to be sure that what we said and what we showed was more than right, more than fair and more than accurate. ...
Tesla could not complain about what was shown because it was there. And here's the strange thing. It didn't. But someone did. Loudly and to every newspaper in the world. The Daily Telegraph said we'd been caught up in a new fakery row. ...
This was weird. Tesla, when contacted by reporters, gave its account of what happened and it was exactly the same as ours.

Life, like beer, is merely borrowed. -- Don Reed

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