GJim

> 2. Humans shouldn't exercise abusive impulses in general

I reserve the right to tell a machine to fuck off.

People really object to DVD menus because they 'delay' watching the film?

I suggest this takes the desire for instant gratification to a new level.

> the program itself is racist as hell. Microsoft is literally bringing in foreigners, paying them much less to do the same damn job.

Nationality != Race

> The USA also used soft power much more effectively,

Good god!

I genuinely choked on a mouthfull of tea reading this!

> Alexa

I'm ammused people call these "smart speakers".

Use their real name: Smart Microphones.

Alexa = Amazons microphone.

> It started when people laughed at the EU's efforts for privacy

The FUD (never laughter) came from the scummy US ad-tech industry; the people whos very salleries depend on invading our privacy.

You will find many of them posting (and downvoting GDPR posts) here on HN to spread their FUD.

> No one cares.

Ahem

https://www.gov.uk/data-protection

I'm impressed by your ignorance!

If you judge intelligence by appearance, then you are rather foolish; somewhat to your detriment.

> Signals must to be costly in order to be effective

Utter bollocks.

A safety pin though ones nose and a pair of ripped tights costs nothing, and signals who one is (or wishes to be) very loudly and clearly.

> Newton wrote his major work in Latin, for example.

Newton wrote in Latin because he was, famously, an arrogent bellend. The rest of the sensible scientific community had long since swiched to living langauges.

> Why do you think all animal species have a latin name?

Good god! This proves you have _completely_ missed the point!

The reason scientic names are in lattin, is BECAUSE it is a dead language. The scientific name can therefore never be confused with the many local/regional names for a species which will always be in a living langage.

All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine^H^H^H^H cricket, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what have the Romans^H^H^H^H^H British ever done for us?

Brought peace!

I'm reminded of a cartoon with an old hippy holding a sign saying "Never trust anyone over 30"....

.... with the 30 crossed out and repalced by 40, which is crossed out and replaced by 50, which is..... you get the idea.

The young calling anybody over 28 'boomer' is the modern equivalent of this :-)

> Abandoning society rather than attempting to live well within society will always be a dead end.

Devils Advocate: Various religious societies such as monestaries and nuneries have been doing this for centuries, and appear to do rather well (if religion is your thing).

> I recently discovered one of my interior doorways is actually a stone archway that someone had squared off, drywalled and installed a cheap hollow door for no apparent reason.

£50 to a spat out smartie says that was done in the 1960's, when the fashion was for everything to look smooth and modern.

We had a home with marvelous 1830's wooden panneling that was hidden behind thin sheets of plywood (presumably in the 1960's) that had been nailed over it to provide a smooth look.

All too frequently we see references to milli bits of memory.

Disappointing to see you being downvoted for asking for a source, though this is the sort of thing we are increasingly seeing on HN.

Yup, Spain is the the wrong time zone.

You can blame General Franco for doing that.

STOP.

Discussions on daylight savings time are pointless without stating your lattitude.

[Here in London at 51 Deg North, DST is much more relevent and appreciated when the summer sun rises so early, and the winter sun so late; it helps keep ones body somewhat in line with nature].

And the mother of all unexploded WW2 ordance is the SS Richard Montgomery.

1.4kt of explosive sat in the Thames Eastury, 35 miles down river from central London, that nobody knows how to get rid of.

"it was determined that if the wreck of Richard Montgomery exploded, it would throw a 300 metres (980 feet)-wide column of water and debris nearly 3,000 metres (9,800 feet) into the air and generate a wave 5 metres (16 feet) high. Almost every window in Sheerness (population circa 20,000) would be broken and buildings would be damaged by the blast."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Richard_Montgomery

In Blighty, the counters (paid volunteers from the local council working voluntery overtime) are supervised and audited. Not to mention representitives from the local political parties will be present as well as the local press to oversee the proceedings. Typically the returing officer will also allow anybody else to be present and observe the proceedings, space and practicalities permitting.

The process is quite fair and rigorous.

Rapid results?

In Blighty, we have paper voting. The polls close at 10pm, the manual count takes place overnight, and the result is typically known the next day.

How much more rapid do you need?

If anyone is fighting for my freedom, I'd rather object to them targeting civilians old boy.

> Oh well. They shouldn’t have harbored bin Laden

Yes, I'm sure the kids who missed their polio vaccinations were all directly responsible for harbouring bin Laden.

Perhaps you will suggest they were playing a long game of hide-and-seek with him?

Somebody who protests violently is still a protester.

You and I will disprove of their illegal methods, but that does not change who they are.

> in Europe, we largely rejected the russian COVID vaccine. In theory we had good reasons, the vaccine was a bit shady

That is an understantement. The Russians publicly acknowlaged the vaccine aproval had been rushed and international protocols hadn't been met. And that is what they said publicly.

Since more reputable vaccines were comming online from other sources, why take the risk?

https://web.archive.org/web/20200819152533/https://www.teleg...

> I'm still puzzled that people's default assumption isn't that somebody is reading all of their internet communications.

I'm also puzzled by the phenomenon of using ones real name on the Internet (outside a professional context). I believe this began to occur around the time facebook became popular.

Good lord!

Rather a paper data breach exposed to a few hotel employees than eletronic data exposed to the entire planet!

> This said, these days it could be done electronically

Are you 'avin a laugh mate?

A photocopy of my passport is going nowhere and is shreadded afterwards. An electronic copy..... God lord.

The GDPR also requires data deletion once you no longer need it; physical as well as electronic. This is common sense, and why some organisations don't do this is simply mind boglling.