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Comment Re:British English and [North] American English (Score 3, Insightful) 121

If we changed spellings so that they followed how words are pronounced:
* We would have words spelled differently in different countries and also different parts of the same country.
* Over time spelling would change, this would make it hard to read old texts. By old I mean 100 or 200 years; even older would be worse.
* Dictionary compilers would have a harder task than they do today.
* Mechanical (ie computer) analysis of texts would be harder, more errors.

If anything we should use a single world wide English spelling. I am English and so I think that it should be the King's English as spoken & written in England. I do not expect those in other countries to agree with me but it would be good if they saw sense.

Comment Repealing Section 230 ... (Score 5, Insightful) 168

would result in news organisations, big platforms (== social media) censoring opinions that they believe that Trump does not like as they fear being sued for displaying them. There is no doubt that the opinions would be attacked in a partisan way -- this is already happening, Trump has sued media for saying things that he does not like.

This would result in suppression of anti Trump opinion - this is what he wants to try to bolster his waning popularity and destroy USA democracy.

Comment Individuals will lose out (Score 1) 10

This will benefit corporations who will be able to jump through the hoops to register all their works; small authors, photographers, musicians will not benefit. I know several small, independent bands in the UK and have been told that it is not worth the time to register with PPL/PRS yet my folk club needs to pay PPL/PRS an annual fee for use of music - much of which is by these small bands.

Comment Rubio is so unpatriotic! (Score 4, Funny) 201

He wants "Times New Roman" ...
* The Times referred to is The Times newspaper, a British publication.
* New Roman is clearly linked to Italy!

He should have ordered the adoption of something like American Kestrel or one of the Disney fonts or one USA fonts. Hopefully, using his great intellect and insight Trump will admonish and correct him.

Comment Re:Life is extremely improbable (Score 1) 42

Think about what you're saying .. LUCA's descendants were able to go to every possible life niche on Earth and displace all other types of life? That makes very little sense.

That is what I think happened. It took some time (millions of years) for LUCA to emerge, once it did it would have quickly spread across the planet, quickly being more millions of years. LUCA would have evolved, some being fitter than others: faster, more robust metabolism - these would have out competed less fit LUCA descendants and also non LUCA that was getting going.

That is not to say that non LUCA descendants do not exist in some niche somewhere - but we have not seen them - yet. So apply Occam's razor and say: possible but probably not.

Submission + - Microsoft faces new complaint for allegedly aiding Israeli war crimes in Gaza (aljazeera.com)

Alain Williams writes: The Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) has announced it filed a complaint against Microsoft, accusing the global tech giant of unlawfully processing data on behalf of the Israeli military and facilitating the killings of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.

In the complaint, the council asked the Data Protection Commission – the European Union’s lead data regulator for the company – to “urgently investigate” Microsoft Ireland’s processing.

“Microsoft’s technology has put millions of Palestinians in danger. These are not abstract data-protection failures — they are violations that have enabled real-world violence,” Joe O’Brien, ICCL’s executive director, said in a statement.

“When EU infrastructure is used to enable surveillance and targeting, the Irish Data Protection Commission must step in — and it must use its full powers to hold Microsoft to account.”

After months of complaints from rights groups and Microsoft whistleblowers, the company said in September it cancelled some services to the Israeli military over concerns that it was violating Microsoft’s terms of service by using cloud computing software to spy on millions of Palestinians.

Comment What interests me ... (Score 1) 89

is if our civilisation will survive the next few hundred years and, if it does not, what will be the causes of our decline:
* climate change (the effects will not be evenly felt)
* nuclear (or other) war
* rise of AI that takes control
* grey goo (molecular nanotechnology)
* strike from deep space asteroid

Feel free to reply with other possible causes.

Comment Re:If.. (Score 4, Interesting) 72

Comment Another problem with smart meters (Score 1) 52

The readings are downloaded frequently and have a granularity of less than a day. So if your electricity usage suddenly drops this can be noticed.

All it takes is a sysadmin type under financial pressure (divorce, gambling debts, medical bills, ...) who needs cash. S/he will be prey to crooks who can get them to do some SQL queries, or similar, to identify usage drops and pass them to the crooks - these addresses are prolly empty as the inhabitant may be away on holiday -- a great place to send a burglar.

They could largely fix this by putting a two week delay before meter readings are uploaded. They will not.

Comment Re: I'm so glad the government makes me safe. (Score 1) 116

The new law (according to the article) still allows the re-sale of tickets, but not for more than the original price.

Which is good as I occasionally organise group outings to a play or similar. People pay me the cost of their ticket. I do, sometimes, profit as some theatres will give (me) a free ticket if I buy more than 10 or so -- but that is not why I do it.

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