h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I see your point Yelbakk. What worries me is that you used a computer and the internet to transmit that message. Both the internet and computers need electricity to work. And as we all know electricity and people is a dangerous combination.....

Life is fraught.

No matter how I struggle and strive
I'll never get out of this world alive

Lusus, thanks for opening my eyes to this new perspective. The world will be a lot safer when the internet is populated exclusively by bots. Oh, wait...

Y.

A commentary on the lyric* in post 16842: this will mean different things to different people, the principle is a great political determinator, the question being whether one opposes the trend; merely yields to it, or, even worse; accelerates it.

By the way, did anyone but me notice that 16842 not only ends in 42, 16842 is an integer multiple of 42?




*Title and music, perhaps?

Hank Williams: "I'll never get out of this world alive"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=19vApPwWqh8

Thanks!

Today on the BBC website - information for terrorists and hackers as to how to bring the world to its knees. Thanks for telling them!

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20150310-how-to-break-the-internet

There's nothing new in that stuff, TC. It was all in the public domain. Serious cyber-criminals are way ahead of all of this.

http://youtu.be/IHfiMoJUDVQ

Belgium proposes a design for the Euro coin which commemorates the Battle of Waterloo (1815). France objects.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-31841421

Should Belgium be more sensitive to their partner-in-currency, or should France get over it?

Now, that's an interesting question. I think Belgium are probably a bit insensitive there, but France should probably get over it.
Yes it was a long time ago and undeniably an important historic landmark, but would you suggest an Agincourt pound coin? (although that's a bit different, not being the same currency).

It's definitely a tricky one, but I have to say I think I'd be okay with it if England were in the Euro and there were coins commemorating historic battles that we lost. People die on both sides in war, and it's their sacrifice that we should always remember, not who "won" or "lost". When you have so many people dying, no-one wins.

If we remember Agincourt, it's only through the fine words of Shakespeare, not because of any political outcome - the region changed hands many times, and, well, England's a province of Normandy as it is.

"Now, that's an interesting question. I think Belgium are probably a bit insensitive there, but France should probably get over it."

Not the first time either. (allegedly)
Winston Churchill, knew he was going to get a state funeral and had requested that his funeral train used Waterloo rather than Paddington, so that De Gaulle had to go to Waterloo.

http://www.strangehistory.net/2012/03/15/churchill-de-gaulle-and-waterloo/

Damn mucked that right up missed a bit out, was supposed to say it's not the first time Waterloo has been used as a pointy stick to taunt the French...

Lewis Hamilton flatly denies that he has asked for a million £ a week from Mercedes if he drives for them next season. Nice to know that all sportsmen aren't money grabbers, and £900,000 a week is enough for anybody I reckon.

This is almost two months ago but it caught my attention on the radio today

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/16/guantanamo-diary-a-classified-handwritten-manuscript

The USA is persisting in carrying out unbelievable awfulness. This man was found innocent every time he was tried; he is not scheduled for further trial. A confession he made was ruled inadmissible by a US Lt-Colonel, as it was uncorroborated and extracted by torture. He has been in Guantanamo since 2002, and his release was ordered in 2010 by a US District Court. He is still held in Guantanamo. What madness is this?

It's my opinion that the right wing has in many ways taken control of our politics. They made it politically impossible to bring these terror suspects to trial in the U.S. by making baseless claims that to do so would invite terror strikes on the homeland. We have successfully tried terrorists in the pasts, but they simply choose to ignore evidence that challenges their dogma. Also, Obama's administration made the practical decision to overlook the crimes of the previous administration (a choice every administration before his has done at least as far back as WW2). He did this with some trite phrase about looking to the future rather than the past. To bring these suspects to trial or to even release them from custody as they've been ordered by the courts would bring to light the crimes of torture, rendition and incommunicado imprisonment, and of denying constitutional rights of representation and due process.

The right takes the ideal of American Exceptionalism as nearly religious truth. In their minds, the US can do no wrong and anyone that points out obvious examples of where we have must be "the enemy", anti-American and their worst epithet, "LIBERAL".

The cognitive dissonance, the double-think is palpable.

Battersea Arts Centre hit by major blaze

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-31879724

Oh noes, that's where I had my first paid job in stage management years ago