Posts by Stephen Judd
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Oh, and I'm not worried Anglican vicars. I'm worried about Brian Tamaki. He has blackshirts.
-
When did you stop beating your wife, Mark?
And if Anglican vicars are typical Christians, is the Mad Mufti of Oz a typical Muslim?
-
Is that PA System's first troll?
-
“On [this particular world], the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people.”
Odd,” said Arthur, “I thought you said it was a democracy.”
“I did,” said Ford. “It is.”
“So,” said Arthur, hoping he wasn’t sounding ridiculously obtuse, “why don’t the people get rid of the lizards?”
“It honestly doesn’t occur to them,” said Ford. “They’ve all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they’ve voted in more or less approximates the government they want.”
“You mean they actually vote for the lizards?”
“Oh yes,” said Ford with a shrug, “of course.”
“But,” said Arthur, going for the big one again, “why?”
“Because if they didn’t vote for a lizard,” said Ford, “the wrong lizard might get in. Got any gin?”
“What?”
“I said,” said Ford, with an increasing air of urgency creeping into his voice, “have you got any gin?”
“I’ll look. Tell me about the lizards.”
Ford shrugged again.
“Some people say the lizards are the best thing that ever happened to them,” he said. “They’re completely wrong of course, completely and utterly wrong, but someone’s got to say it.”
-
Never mind the duck. What about the kitten?
-
The St James gives me the heeby jeebies. When we saw Shapeshifter most people in the mezzanine were dancing and it *shook*.
I abhor the trend to later and later gigs. It's not just my impending old fartiness, I hope - it was a rare gig in the 80s and early 90s that started much after 10. I blame publicans who want people to drink as much as possible beforehand...
-
What about pakehakeha (the mythical pale-skinned people)?
-
I would think that if DRM were enforced in Vista in the way suggested in the paper, something like this might happen (and I think Peter is hinting at this in his paper):
China has chip fabs to make non-drm hardware. Designs for older chips, or chips compatible with older drivers, will surface for some entrepreneurial person there. China has lax enforcement of copyright law. And there will be plenty of people prepared to crack DRM open in DRM'ed product.
So there will be a great market in cheap Chinese hardware to play bootlegged content.
The only way to prevent this is for Big DRM Content Lobby to get laws passed preventing the import and distribution of non-DRM players. So that's the legislative move I'd look for next, maybe in about five years.
I don't see any great consumer uprising about the slowness imposed by DRM - there will be CPU cycles to spare in new kit. And there won't be more than grumbles about interoperability - look at the shit people put up with now. But once a totally easy, cheap alternative is there people will go for it.
My first thought on the iPhone? Man, that'll be great when it runs Ubunut. My second thought? Crap, patents up the wazoo will prevent implementing a free UI. My third thought? I already have one of these, it's called a Treo, and keys + stylus make it damned easy to use.
-
wonder if, before the offensiveness of coconut to some peoples, your ex brother in law would've innocently called a Samoan, or Fijian or whoever a coconut?
Not at all. I was just saying that if you grow up in a racist milieu, and the term you hear most commonly is a racist one, it is the one you will reach for unconsciously, without any overt (though perhaps plenty of covert) malice.
-
Well, Maori fears of displacement by foreigners goes back to the early 19th century - and they were largely proved correct too.
My experience is that members of ethnic minorities are no less prejudiced than anyone else. Possibly, in an attempt to bolster group identity and pride, even worse.
On the third hand Manakura's not-mates may well be like my ex brother-in-law, for whom words like "coconut" were unself-consciously natural. Unti it was pointed out, it never would have occurred to him that there was any other word to use, or that offensive sentiment attached, and it wasn't as if he knew anyone who could take it personally.