Posts by Francis Boyle

Fail indeed

But a win for nominative determinism.

As I was at pains to point out

I don't think all, or even most, of Hipster Hitler works. I certainly wouldn't walk down the street wearing that particular shirt. But though Hipster Hitler is about the Hitler not the Holocaust (the vast majority of items on the site don't reference the Holocaust) not mentioning it would be like talking about Jack the Ripper and neglecting to mention he was a murderer.

And no I'm not trying to defend "a bit of fun at the expense of the victims of the Nazis" What I'm trying to defend is actual free speech not the ersatz kind where you can say anything as long as there's no chance that anyone, anywhere, will ever be upset by it. The simple fact is that you don't know that publishing that shirt comes at "the expense of the victims of the Nazis". How is that supposed to work? It looks to me that the only harm is to your sense of propriety.

You mention the morons on Stormfront. So they like Hipster Hitler. They probably liked the Downfall parodies too. According to Wikipedia the American Nazis Party put Norman Spinrad's Iron Dream on their recommended reading list. Which proves only that fascists tend not to be very bright and don't get satire.

The problem is, your approach inevitably leads to a fear of discussing sensitive issues lest someone misunderstands and responds in the wrong way. And that way lies fascism by stealth.

Congratulations

You've just invented active camouflage or at least one version of it. (Other versions include Lewis' beloved invisible sheds .) Better give DARPA a call.

Wow

The equivalent of almost 4000 bar radiators. That's sure to melt the glaciers!

Is that a bug

or. . .

Exactly

The problem is not working out what sort of device we will all be using in five years time but coming up with a way of syncing the data on a range of devices without just dumping everything "in the cloud".

How's that working out for

Wordperfect.

Try playing with a gravity simulator

The difficult thing is to create a system in which something doesn't get ejected.

Sheesh

It 's enough to make me want to sit down and write replacements for all the GNU utils just to stop nonsense like this and I only know Javascript.

Wait . . .

Also

because it's just like Star Trek - if captain Picard wore a backpack with a bloody great box in it.

What is the radar on these boats?

Wired up to Huawei 3g units* which as we know send all their data straight back to the PLA.

*Black helicopter because I'm using one now.

All* airships look like giant penises

That's (the main) part of their appeal.

*except the ones that look like Thunderbird 2, obviously.

Don't you mean

People are just looking at it wrong.

Giffgaff goody-bags

I thought my brain had stopped functioning but, no, Google informs me that in the UK that is actually a thing.

Yep

"just had an explosion in my pants. It was ground shaking"

Of course, this being the internet, it's odds on that these are the results that matter to you. (For a random value of 'you")

Since it's Silicon Heaven

I'm afraid the lowly mechanicals are banned

Well that's him outed, then

A "renowned" nuclear engineer worked as a nuclear engineer, on major nuclear engineering projects. Who'd have thought it.

I want to change my user name

to Baldrick's Left Testicle.

ODFO

FTW

Look, it's a rip-off

But that's not and has never been the point.

Generally a creative person, an artist or designer or novelist or whatever, tries to be creative. That's what adds value and wins awards. Generally, however, they fail. As a consequence they fail in the marketplace. We don't however punish then with the threat of an IP lawsuit. If we did, then for example, Tolkien's estate would be rolling in the proceeds of lawsuits against about 90% of 20th Century fantasy authors.

Of course, in this case, Samsung hasn't tried to be creative, or rather they have deliberately decided not to be. For that the market should punish them. (Hell, I'd be embarrassed enough to be seen to be a fanboi, but a fake fanboi?) If this lawsuit succeeded it would set a disastrous precedent. Which is why it won't. Originality is simple the price we pay for originality and even the law knows it.

From the linked story

"A FORMER female executive is suing a major Melbourne company for $1.1 million after it allegedly failed to act on her repeated complaints of serious sexual harassment."

That'd be right

According to the link the Netflix deal was for the entire series - something like 50 hours of programming. Now that actually sounds rather expensive for repeats but it was a flagship deal. For more ordinary programming $100 million buys you a lot of content.

So you think

Richard Stallman really is a ninja*. Look, I'm no fan of RMS. Sometimes I agree with him. More than often I think he's several kinds of wrong. But he's earned the right to be listened too. If you think he's wrong by all means say so, but then, the onus is on you to support your position, which I don't see you doing.

For the record I think he's pretty much right here - trusting MS to behave in an even moderately altruistic manner is a mug's game.

*Inevitable XKCD reference. Number 225 to be precise.

I'd prefer

what happened last week to have happened a billion years ago and half a universe away. When you can go anywhere and tell any story story arcs become an encumbrance and a contrivance. Continuity's fine - the show's always has that - but lately it's become a fetish that's getting in the way of good storytelling.

Bite your head off

That's the legal (and just) punishment for spelling 'Qantas' with a 'u'.

Same here

I was expecting a BOFH-approved zapper system. So many creative uses there.

When nuclear energy goes wrong it goes so very very wrong

That's exactly what has just been disproved.

That's only the second biggest

The biggest: Oprah, Beyonce, Lindsay. One of these names is not like the other.

Fear not

in the absence of VOIP, the only way you'll be hearing your neighbour's conversations is if you lean over their shoulder and read them yourself. And then you'll get both sides. Or if someone in the carriage talks to someone else in the carriage. Never been on the Underground - is that verboten?

Easy

Just call Fitzcarraldo - has to be easier on the way down.

Don't you mean Nonageddon

no need to be sexist.

Face it, Graham

If your storeroom was robbed it'd be in bootnotes the next day.