Posts by Rich of Observationz
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On Judeo-Christianity - I believe that Christianity was invented by 4th Century Romans as an attempt to bring social control to a collapsing empire. The Roman cults and religions didn't achieve this - people could just find themselves a cult and priest that they liked.
The Romans saw Judaism as a religion that imposed a hierarchy and a set of rules on its followers. Rather than adopt it directly, they invented "Judaism 2.0" as the new religion for the empire. They got their scribes to make up some great stories and invent a ficticious leader character "Christ". Tellingly, they made sure that the religion established a leadership that they could control and a doctrine that butressed their power.
It didn't really work for the Romans - but it did work out excellently for subsequent rulers from Charlemagne to Tony Blair.
Ok, so I have no evidence for this - but there's very little for the accepted view of religious history either.
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I wouldn't adjust time so that the system clock is out. Endless potential problems, especially on a server. You might want to change your TZ from GMT+12 (Wellington) to GMT+13 (Tonga) for the week. That's much safer.
This should be softcoded. In early Unix it was (and probably still is, if truth be told, you just need to know which file and how). Macs are actually running BSD at this level, aren't they?
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On the related topic, am I the only one who thinks that the McCanns are about as innocent as Lindy Chamberlain - "foreign paedophiles stole my baby!"
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I once met a chap who had worked for GCHQ in the UK. When I pulled his leg about the bumbling image of spies in recent times, he looked at me archly and said: "That's what we want you to think."
They want you to think that they're just pretending to be a bunch of bumbling incompetetents in order to disguise the fact that they are genuinely a bunch of bumbling incompetents?
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Now I have to disagree - I am so utterly sick of being told a franchise of a multi-national corporation (the IRB) represents us and I owe it my loyalty I would happily burn ten thousand All Black flags.
Or at least cut out or tape over the MasterCard bit? Or get flags/t-shirts/other collateral with the silver fern and "New Zealand" rather than "All Blacks" thus supporting our nation, not a multinational sporting corporation?
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There's a good test of any London Underground automated map - ask it how to get from Chancery Lane to Farringdon. They're about 5 minutes walk apart but can only be reached by tube through three changes of train.
On the alleged Chinese hacking, Helen Clark was rightly nonchalant on Havok this morning. Any system with secret data or with safety implications (power, water, air traffic) should be and is airgapped from the internet. Shutting down email, defacing websites, etc. might be annoying but doesn't amount to any form of terrorism.
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Livejournal has a setting that only allows "friends" to comment - but then it's half way between a blog hoster and a social network.
I'd think that choosing who to let in was a lot easier than worrying over each and every comment. (I'd probably be blackballed for excessive spikiness, mind).
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Plainpalais, Geneva
Classy address!! All those lakefront cafes and the like.
I hope you get up into the mountains and see some of the Swiss (and French) countryside.
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Maybe with rates so low, now is the time to start a news magazine?
20 articles of 2000 words at 10c a word is what? $4k. Maybe less if I got students and work experience kids to do some of the articles for bylines. Ditto photography.
I guess the real costs are layout, printing and distribution. Plus ad-sales - if salesreps are any good they'll want a guarantee.
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I guess it's different for Brits. I doubt that any more of my friends are British than the national average (about 5% maybe) - I don't even realise someones from the UK sometimes (unless they talk Geordie or something).
With the Skykiwi stuff (is the word "Sky" significant to Chinese?) I think one shouldn't assume that those who rant on websites are representative. I think that most migrants keep what they want out of their old and new nations - and what's wrong with that?