costard
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Posts posted by costard
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Whilst 'tis true that to drink from a full cup is better than to drink from one part full,
the secret is to make the cup somewhat smaller.
Lower your expectations, and they shall be met, here in the Peng Thread.
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Diesel - wikileaks was "off air" for a while a few months ago, I'm able to follow your link to it today. Australia always has been a police state - it's just that no-one could be arsed seeing it through to a dictatorship.
As far as the banking scam goes, well.... no worse, really, than in-house insurance which sees fees paid for the insurance of knowingly un-insurable debts. cf. AIG and NINJA loans in the US. The letter of the law is followed (insurance is required because it means there is another layer of inspection of the riskiness of the original loan), but the intent is bypassed. If the behaviour of Barclays is found to be infraction of the taxation laws of your great nation, I would expect the board members and senior accountants to see some jail time. Somehow, I doubt it'll happen.
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A large part of the Australian populace have been watching this one unfold...
The moral? - don't tell really, really stupid lies. Especially if you're a judge.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25215177-601,00.html
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Well...
I live in a clean, warm house with my wife and child, my disposable wealth is something like forty times that of an Afghani labourer. I am no-one special in my society, just an average working joe without a tertiary degree. I have the capability to reason and the singular advantage of the circumstances in which to develop that capability - that is, I'm not living at subsistance level and I don't have to cope with armed thugs dictating my actions down to the expression of my thoughts. In some ways I am the fortunate recipient of benefits that have taken hundreds of years to develop - medicine, scientific and political systems, financial systems; in other ways I work hard to maintain those systems - I don't indulge in deliberately hypocritical or dishonest behaviour for personal gain and I recognise an obligation to the society that I've been raised in. I also recognise the power and the right of that society to impose corrective and directing rules upon me. I have high expectations of my leaders and the opportunity to dispose of them when they fail to meet those expectations, provided I'm prepared to work with others to bring about that disposition.
I can recognise the truth and wry humour in the observation that democracy is the worst political system, with the exception of all the others; I suspect the same is true of capitalism as a financial system. Their strengths lie in their ability to suffer harm and privation and return to good health. The global economy isn''t wrecked so much as neglected - [rant] a rising market makes anyone look good and the ******* ***** scumbag ******-****** with their false smiles and false words and their overweening superiority have done no work to maintain it and should be plowed into the soil as the only possible benefit they could make [/rant] - the system has evolved to recover and there is hope to be found in the cleverness of our ancestors and the re-kindling of our admiration for their designs. Imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, we might do well to emulate their discipline: in observation, argument and behaviour.
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But regarding the present discussion, I wonder if part of the reason that material was destroyed was to keep it from falling into the hands of "another company". Normal industrial espionage aside, there is also the old fashioned kind and I doubt that anyone at NNSA is eager to help any foreign powers not allied to us make better ballistic missiles.
Michael
Good call - but the cynic would point out that the developer of the process is unlikely to get any royalties from the patent, so is more likely to be consulted (and paid) for the re-development.
@ gunnergoz - not just the military. The banking industry is now sitting in their costly pile of turds, telling each other in wondering tones, "Oh, so THAT's why you don't do the things we were taught not to do at school."
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razz1 - that's where karma and vd comes in to play.
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You may have seen this one:
This is an actual letter sent to the then DFAT (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) Minster, The Hon Alexander Downer and the then Immigration minister, The Hon Amanda Vanstone. The Government tried in desperation to censure the author, but got nowhere because every legal person who read it nearly wet themselves laughing!
Please excuse the language contained within, but I suspect the author was somewhat upset? I'll let you decide!
Dear Mr. Minister,
I'm in the process of renewing my passport, and still cannot believe this.
How is it that K-Mart has my address and telephone number, and knows that I bought a Television Set and Golf Clubs from them back in 1997, and yet, the Federal Government is still asking me where I was born and on what date.
For Christ sakes, do you guys do this by hand?
My birth date you have in my Medicare information, and it is on all the income tax forms I've filed for the past 40 years. It is on my driver's licence, on the last eight passports I've ever had, on all those stupid customs declaration forms I've had to fill out before being allowed off the planes over the last 30 years, and all those insufferable census forms that I've filled out every 5 years since 1966.
Also..would somebody please take note, once and for all, that my mother's name is Audrey, my Father's name is Jack, and I'd be absolutely f**king astounded if that ever changed between now and when I drop dead!!!...
s**t!
I apologize, Mr. Minister. But I'm really pissed off this morning. Between you an' me, I've had enough of all this bull****! You send the application to my house, then you ask me for my f**king address!! What the hell is going on with your mob? Have you got a gang of mindless Neanderthal arseholes workin' there!
And another thing, look at my damn picture. Do I look like Bin Laden? I can't even grow a beard for God's sakes. I just want to go to New Zealand and see my new granddaughter. (Yes, my son interbred with a Kiwi girl). And would someone please tell me, why would you give a s**t whether I plan on visiting a farm in the next 15 days? If I ever got the urge to do something weird to a sheep or a horse, believe you me, I'd sure as hell not want to tell anyone!
Well, I have to go now, 'cause I have to go to the other end of the city, and get another f**king copy of my birth certificate, and to part with another $80 for the privilege of accessing MY OWN INFORMATION!
Would it be so complicated to have all the services in the same spot, to assist in the issuance of a new passport on the same day?? Nooooo.. that'd be too f**king easy and makes far too much sense. You would much prefer to have us running all over the place like chickens with our f**king heads cut off, and then having to find some high society wanker to confirm that it's really me in the goddamn photo! You know the photo..the one where we're not allowed to smile?! ...you f**king morons
Signed - An Irate Australian Citizen.
P.S Remember what I said above about the picture, and getting someone in high-society to confirm that it's me? Well, my family has been in this country since before 1850!
In 1856, one of my forefathers took up arms with Peter Lalor. (You do remember the Eureka Stockade!!)
I have also served in both the CMF and regular Army for something over 30 years (I went to Vietnam in 1967), and still have high security clearances.
I'm also a personal friend of the president of the RSL.. and Lt General Peter Cosgrove sends me a Christmas card each year.
However, your rules require that I have to get someone 'important' to verify who I am; You know.. someone like my doctor; WHO WAS BORN AND RAISED IN f**king PAKISTAN !!!......a country where they either assassinate or hang their ex-Prime Ministers, and are suspended from the Commonwealth for not having the 'right sort of government.'
You are all f**king idiots
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I suppose if people get the impression that the state isn't acting in their intrests they will start to fall back on the traditional networks thet were suppressed under Saddams rule.
As Michael Emrys says, spot on. And fundamentalist religious movements are about as devolved as a political system gets (ok, maybe they're one step above family groups).
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I got this one today:
Hi Sir,
I have a computer in which u see ur future r u interested for buy it.
Tony
Personally, I am suspicious because of all the spelling and grammar mistakes. I mean, this computer doesn't even have a spell checker?
If his computer can see the future, why is he asking a question about what you are going to do? He should be telling you he saw you forking out for it....
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Hate to say it but literacy amongst the adult male population in Iraq is 84.1% - It would be hard to find a candidate for the job who isn't literate.
Anyway a police officer can't do his or her job without maths and literacy so all applicants would have to take some sort of test
Iraq is (/was) a pretty well developed country
A bad guess then - thanks for the correction hcrof.
"...the slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact."
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I wonder to what extent the Iraqi translator edited the MP's diatribe. If I were in his shoes, I'd probably think to myself, "Sheesh, I can't possibly tell these guys 'you're all a bunch of @#$%%$# women'...."
..and I can sympathise with the guy laughing, too. For some strange reason I go into a giggling fit when someone around me is throwing a tantrum. It isn't exactly a survival trait, or at least I haven't come across anyone who appreciates the humour.
As far as the comparison to a US police officer goes - I guess the average US cop is far better educated (s/he can read and write and do maths) and is far less likely to be politically affiliated with a group running around with bombs and guns (apart from the big ones, of course, which tend to do their business in other countries... I digress). Clan warfare is the norm where nationalism hasn't taken hold - what odds the recent upset in Northern Ireland is based along clan lines? - and a national police force trying to enforce a national law cuts no ice with groups that cannot identify with the greater populace. It really is about nation building, it really is a difficult job. May it never need to happen in my country.
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And if he wouldn't do the job for $2 million, too bad; he shouldn't take the job. A bit like me asking for a three hundred percent raise at my job interview - there's no way it's going to happen. But somehow these CEO types managed to convince the rest of us that were worth the money...
The other argument I'm enjoying at the moment is the one about our kids paying for our governments running up huge debts (in order to prevent a financial catastrophe, a point which is always left out of the argument): the debts were incurred by the financial types who were earning huge salaries by implementing strategies that took short term gains in the full knowledge of the long term costs. For them to turn around now and say they had nothing to do with it is just an indication of their true worth - fertilizer grade human beings.
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The extent to which anthropomorphism can twist the human psyche and pervert human endeavor knows no bounds.
While robotics scientists in the US make machine-gun-armed micro-tanks and missile-armed robo-planes, robotics scientists in Japan make "emotionally twisted" androids. "Never the twain shall meet"?
Looks like national stereotypes are making their way into the designs. I expect an Australian robot would steal your beer, urinate on the BBQ and pass out on your front lawn; the French has "I surrender!" programmed in one hundred and twenty languages; the Russian model walks in small circles hitting anything it can reach with a small truncheon whilst humming the "The Internationale".
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Hmm. I took a look at the diagrams at the bottom of the page - the exhaust valves are still powered directly by the cam, the intake valves do their weird hydraulic thing. So that's how they get their "blip" in the profile (for the intake valves on the exhaust stroke) without running into trouble with friction loads on the cam.
So the intake valves are controlled by two systems meshed to the hydraulics. An expensive and complicated method of gaining some efficiencies. Can you imagine trying to repair the thing?
Will Fiat pull it off?
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Nah, this is hype.
The emissions are reduced by mixing the exhaust with air, giving a lower concentration of emissions (particulates, CO and NOx). The power increase is achieved by a power achieving cam shaft profile - which would point to a mechanical valve operating mechanism, not hydraulic. Perhaps the hydraulics are there to damp the spring rates, I didn't read much further into the article.
Any mech engineers on the boards?
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Bloody hell!
You'd think they'd program some sort of "consummation achieved" sub-routine.
Not exactly robot tears...
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Hi Cpl Steiner,
I thought the fractal contour generation was based on an iterative process, therefore not giving a "random" landscape. So, ok for a section of beach front or mountain canyon, but no good for a forking river valley with drumlins and floating boulders. Random to some extent but generally giving a discernable pattern so not too interesting from a tactical point of view.
I know fractally generated wallpaper designs never took off...
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As long as there is money to pay the salaries there will be applicants for the jobs.
If it ever happens that the Iraqi police force develops into a halfway competent law enforcement agency, the number of attacks on its personnel will decline; most probably due to a number of successful counter-attacks. I know the myth is that western law enforcement groups find their attackers and bring them in front of the courts; the reality is that this is only true where they themselves aren't the victims. In the case of an attack on the law, they use their intelligence networks to make sure that the counter is well timed and placed, and the miscreants end up dead. Good intelligence also limits collateral damage, leading to less of a backlash. How this is managed without the police force overstepping the mark and abusing it's power is a matter of mystery to me - probably to do with the culture or mythos of the organisation and the oversight by the legislature and courts - the overarching set of values to which the society prescribes.
I don't think there is a group fighting for control of the country that believes it doesn't need a police force, so it is likely that the bombing is being paid for by a criminal element (duh - how about an "ordinary" criminal element?). Are there any reports of accounting discrepancies along the lines of dead recruits' salaries being paid and collected? This would be in line with some practices in the Vietnam War...
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Nah, not the gullibility nor the fallability, but the willingness of others to take advantage of it. And this only really is a problem if you believe that both good and evil people exist. Turns out that if you believe that there are only, ever and always, the bad, you don't suffer from the shock - and you are far less likely to be gulled.
Fallability, like hillbillity, just is.
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That's one of the things that have been on my mind as well. What is the betting that once the US pulls out, Iraq will disintegrate into its constituent parts? When Iraq was brought into being after the First World War, it was a lashed together conglomerate of more or less separate entities with relatively very flimsy ties to each other, and stronger grounds for mutual animosity. It sort of resembles Yugoslavia in this regard and for somewhat similar reasons.
Michael
Sadly, the odds would be pretty high - until another Saddam comes along and unites the tribes. Typically, he'd form a coalition strong enough to defeat the remainder militarily, probably with backing from the US intelligence community.
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snigger. Yep, and I'd love to know what the translation was coming out as -
"Same old same old, blah blah. Ali, he's gonna kick your ass if you laugh at him again, so cool it, yeah?"
If the MP has no concerns going and doing the job, why doesn't he? And if the squad does have some militia fighters in it, he'll get a chance to mop them up.
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I've thought about this one a little more and, well, if the tank commander is trying to spot the AT rifleman, tear gas in the air around the tank sort of makes sense.
"Where is he?"
"Somewhere, aargh, over there, aahh, fer f**k's sake gimme some water..."
If it was a hindrance to the German troops assaulting the tank it probably kept the TC buttoned. Maybe?
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Who said that? I have no great knowledge of the subject but I would have thought that size of country has more to do with possible collapse. Secondly, that a highly integrated society with JIT etc, and imported food is far far easier to render impotent then a low tech country. Thirdly, form of government and recent history.
Accounting for war Soviet production, employment and the defence burden 1940-45 - Mark Harrison Cambridge 2002.
The reason agrarian societies collapse is because their economy collapses as it is unable to move goods and services around due to poor transport infrastructure. Peasants stop taking their goods to market, the towns start to starve and the population flees to the countryside, leading to a stopping of industry. Advanced agriculture societies are more able to keep the supply of food going into the urban areas and move items around to reduce the effects of shortage.
This process had already occurred following the revolution of 1917 - the famines of 1922/23 being mostly a result of the collapse of the original economy and no organised infrastructure being put in place by the state. The Chinese suffered the same thing - a loss of roughly 8% of their populace following the revolution because the follow-on effects of removing the motivation for moving farm produce to market: no profit to be made at market or in the transportation, so it didn't take place. In both cases the paradigm of the revolutionary text underwent major transformation as unforseen circumstances forced a rethink on practical matters. By the time WW2 came around, the Soviets had converted their economy back to one that was efficiently distributing food and other goods. The analysis that concludes otherwise is flat out wrong.
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Yeah, thanks for the link. It's tempting to take cheap shots at that MP, but now that the vid is on the web it's only a matter of time before his career gets killed. Unless of course one of those Iraqi cops get him first.
Hopefully his career won't suffer too much - no doubt he's in a hell of a situation, one problem being that his trainees don't really seem to care whether he's there or not. Or it doesn't matter or sumfink.
Badly fitting hats or odd-shaped heads?
Improving the look of the Peng Challenge Thread
in Combat Mission Shock Force 1
Posted
oi, I reek Quality, I do. Not like this thread, which reached it's nadir recently. I mean, who comes here? Your best guests are loathsomely repellent, and the hosts, weel, they're all sounding a little tired. Cack, I qualified as an SSN - should I take this seriously enough to grovel and plead for mercy?
Gimme a cigar.
No more cream for me please. Toffee, now, there's a thought...