I wonder if any newspaper hacked her phone, or her families phones? -Rd

Hit any user to continue.

Gregory.Gadow wrote:

My tolerance for puns is reaching capacitance.

Some of them are pretty shocking all right. -Richard

Hit any user to continue.

My experience of Driving in the States is primarily from Florida, with a bit from Vegas to LA and up the coast to San Francisco. But mainly Florida. The land of the newly weds and nearly deads. So I know a thing or do about sharing the roads with elderly drivers, and frankly they were not the biggest problem I faced. When we got rear ended "twice" it wasn't by elderly drivers. It was was by young drivers who just weren't watching where they were going. Also, the thing that I found most dangerous wasn't drivers going too slow, or even drivers going too fast, but rather drivers being too erratic. I.e. "I'm in the left lane, oh, there's my exit, I think I'll just barrel across three lanes of highway to go where I want to be." 35 in a 55 zone is annoying as hell, but I'd rather have more of those people on the road and a few less of the morons, than the other way around. All that said, next time I'm behind the 35mph slow poke, I'll be cursing up a storm. -Richard

Hit any user to continue.

Thanks. Good Reply. -Richard

Hit any user to continue.

The recent changes to reputation points piqued my interest and I starting looking into the things we get points for. I'm a little confused. My understanding of gamification is that it's a bit like taxes and incentives. You use it to promote the kind of activity you want to see in your community. That being the case, the awarding of points for different activities gives us an insight into the kind of community that the organisers would like to create. Which is why I'm really confused about what it is that CodeProject wants to be. For example, here are a few recent events from my log.... Signing In - 1 point. (nothing wrong there, it's good to promote regular use) Post Message - 1 point. (again, good, reward people who contribute) Source Code from Article Downloaded - 1 point (Huh! 1 point, for a download, oookaaay) Message Upvoted - 24 points (this is taking the piss). I write a moderately witty post and I get multiple awards of 24 points. How can this possibly be 24 times better than providing source code that someone goes to the trouble of downloading? Note, I'm not complaining about the system. Frankly if there was no reputation system at all on CodeProject it wouldn't make one iota of difference to me. I'm interested in Gamification, and CodeProject is an interesting case of it. I'm just trying to understand why the system is gamed the way it is. I'm sure a lot of thought goes into the kind of site CodeProject should be, and how to game the points system to nudge things in that direction. -Richard

Hit any user to continue.

Yes, you can set up a team of virtual machines and they'll work like a network. One little caveat, In the past I've seen some strange behaviour. E.g. I had a virtual machine serving the role of a web server. Numerous physical boxes on the network could see this virtual web server and use it. But the Host PC, the actual box that the virtual machine was running on couldn't see it, even though the Host PC could see the rest of the network and the rest of the network could see the host PC. Never cracked it. Eventually gave up because it wasn't that important. So, yes is the answer, but no promises that everything will go as planned. -Richard

Hit any user to continue.

I saw a launch a few years ago, from a distance. Actually we were the wrong side of Orlando and we pulled into a rest stop to have a look. Lots of other cars had peeled off the road for the same reason and we all stood around waiting. Someone was on a phone to someone else closer to the launch, and they told us it was moving. It seemed like an age from that moment until we actually saw it. It was a little bit surreal. Watching this lone slow motion flare streaking across the sky. I was impressed that even after all these years Florida residents get a little giddy for a Shuttle Launch. For us a space flight take off feels something like watching early planes leave the ground. Flight has become commonplace now. Most of us wouldn't bother to raise our eyes from out laptops in the departure lounge to watch a 747 take to the air. Spaceflight is still amazing, for now. Long may it be so, but in time this too will become commonplace. Godspeed Atlantis. -Richard

Hit any user to continue.

Do you know how old I was when I figured out that the calendar repeats exactly every 28 years? I wasn't old enough to vote or drive, but I could figure that out, and use it two write an eternal calendar program on a Sinclair Spectrum. OK, you got a chain letter and decided to share it, ok you're not smart enough to realise that the claims in the email a spurious. But, seriously, it takes no more than 5 seconds to google any chain mail and get clued in. Look: Click Here It's bad enough that we have to put up with this from the muggles on facebook, but Code Project ? Come on. -Richard

Hit any user to continue.

ahmed zahmed wrote:

Just got the following forwarded to me in an email:

And you thought...I know, the folks at the Code Project have been looking like they need to be annoyed by a stupid and not even remotely accurate chain mail. Why If I weren't such I nice guy, I'd downvote you back to the Nixon Administration. -Richard

Hit any user to continue.

Keith Barrow wrote:

I gained a load of points for chatting in the non-technical bits, but lost heavily on the author scores.

I must admit the first thought that struck me when I started reading about the changes was...this rewards chatting on the forum more than writing articles. I thought I must be mistaken and shrugged my shoulders. -Richard

Hit any user to continue.

DaveAuld wrote:

Just got to your member profile, click the reputation tab, and there is a list of changes shown there.

Got it. I see what happened now. -Richard

Hit any user to continue.

Yesterday my CP reputation points was 7.9K, today it's 9.8K. Nothing in the log to indicate how this happened. -Richard

Hit any user to continue.

Rage wrote:

That's probably the highest disadvantage of the US justice system, IMO. Have money, get the best attorneys, and there you go.

Bernie Madoff, Kenneth Lay, Jeffrey Skilling, Hell, even O.J is in Jail. Money will always buy you the best legal defence that money can buy, but at least in the US you need to actually buy that defence and it's no guarantee you'll walk. In Ireland if you're rich you don't even need to buy a defence because the chances of charges ever being brought are remote at best. -Richard

Hit any user to continue.

Gary R. Wheeler wrote:

For a motorcycle rider, it's hard to imagine the helmet makes a lot of difference in the results from a crash, given the speeds involved. Does anyone have any real data?

Some Interesting Stats Here[^] There is one reason why I'd question the validity of helmet laws. There are lots of people on the donor waiting lists who'll look after themselves better than a guy who won't wear a helmet on a motorbike. Surely by allowing people to not wear helmets, we're facilitating the transfer of organs from stupid people to hopefully, somewhat less stupid people. Overall society benefits. -Richard

Hit any user to continue.

My question, not addressed by any of the media outlets is... Are his buddies that were protesting with him now convinced by the validity of the law? The point that a lot of these guys miss is that not all helmet-less riders are killed. Many "survive" and become a burden to the health system, insurance companies and loved ones. Now, If I had my way I'd be ok with people being free to pass on safety equipment like helmets, safety belts, life jackets. But that would automatically be a consent on their part to pass on emergency services, paramedics and life saving surgery, etc. In short, don't expect society to care for you better than you're willing to care for yourself. I admit, that one day these words may come back to haunt me when my lifetime of Bacon consumption catches up with me. But for now, I've got a high horse and I intend to ride like the wind. -Richard

Hit any user to continue.

I was going to ask whether the last thing to go through his mind was a wish that he'd worn a helmet, but I know someone here would be tasteless enough to do the old "last thing to go through his mind" joke. See what I did there? -Richard

Hit any user to continue.

Sorry if this is a repost. Talk about becoming a poster boy against your will.[^]

Hit any user to continue.

"I think she has her head stuck so far up her own arse she doesn’t know whether to speak or fart." I'm not sure who, but someone is coming out of all of this with a Reality TV Show. Hell, put the whole lot of them on TV, it'll be better than 90% of the crap on there. Come Dine With Me "Miss Fancy Pants Special" This is Real Life "Keeping Up Appearances". The father of the bride is no Onslo, but he gets into the spirit of it. The cynic in me is actually questioning whether this actually is all a huge set up for some sort of spin-off. Marketers are getting more and more interested in the whole "viral" thing. -Richard

Hit any user to continue.

digital man wrote:

Personally think there is a middle ground: manners cost nothing and there is a way of doing and saying things that don't piss people off - it's called tact though many people today think it's fine to do and say whatever they want, never mind the consequences.

There's a difference between manners/tact and the things this lady demanded however. I'm not saying the guest in question was tactful in other respects, she probably wasn't. But the things demanded by the florist go beyond manners and into that kind of phony ceremony that some people engage in in the interests of appearing to have achieved a certain status. If this story tells us anything it's that manners don't make a person good. This woman's true pretentiousness shone through. A person truly secure in their station in life might enjoy a guest (or indeed a host) engaging in all the formal rules of etiquette, but a person of true class would never react like this woman did to breaches of the "rules". On the Queen's recent visit to Ireland there were various media stories about how the Queen might react to the Irish people's liking for informality. Numerous potential faux pas were enumerated, and some of them came to pass, and it was made clear again and again that the Queen had no problem with any of it and enjoyed her visit immensely. Now, perhaps when she returned to the safety of England she summoned her team and told them she never wanted to return to that hell hole of ignorance. I rather suspect not. Regardless of what she truly thought of her time here, she had the good grace to accept the behaviour of her hosts in the friendly spirit it was offered. One suspects that the protagonist in the original story would have behaved rather differently had the head of the Gaelic Athletic Association dared to touch her elbow as he did with the Queen while guiding her towards the playing field of Croke Park in Dublin. Some people exhibit manners because it is who they are, and some people exhibit manners because it's a coat they wear. The truth will always out. -Richard

Hit any user to continue.

In retrospect, I reacted in haste. I would of course visit again, once. So that I could write a handwritten card, telling her what I really think of her. I'd point her to the dictionary definition of Etiquette Etiquette ( /ˈɛtɨkɛt/ or /ˈɛtɨkɪt/, French: [e.ti.kɛt]) is a code of behavior that delineates expectations for social behavior according to contemporary conventional norms within a society, social class, or group. I'd point out the my behaviour was perfectly in keeping with the contemporary social norms of 21st century society, when visiting the house of a florist. On the other hand, Insulting your guests and their family is not in keeping with social norms. -Richard

Hit any user to continue.