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Post by archie on Jun 10, 2015 14:44:31 GMT
Replaced 'hasbeen' with 'never was' and you're spot on! Or replace 'never ' with 'Tis' and he did do one good programme.
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Post by gazz on Jun 10, 2015 14:54:45 GMT
Replaced 'hasbeen' with 'never was' and you're spot on! Or replace 'never ' with 'Tis' and he did do one good programme. Happy to stand corrected on that one, even if he was part of a collective that paled into insignificance next to Sally James. So I guess that just about counts, matey!
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Post by another_ruined_saturday on Jun 10, 2015 18:39:07 GMT
i saw him as othello a few years ago. the fella playing iago was fantastic, but i couldn't shake the feeling that the lead was just doing a lenny henry impersonation but with more flowery language.
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Post by another_ruined_saturday on Jun 10, 2015 18:41:24 GMT
Replaced 'hasbeen' with 'never was' and you're spot on! Or replace 'never ' with 'Tis' and he did do one good programme. that's an excellent one, archie. might i add that around the time he was doing 'othello' the british media seemed intent on collectively fellating him about it. lenny, that is, not archie...
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2015 20:15:06 GMT
So IDS (a man with FOUR children) still wants to cut child benefit to any family with more than two children, offering benefits to only the first two? Although sources say that Downing Street have thrown it out again, they'll already have other ways to cripple the working classes to save money for now, don't worry about that. Nothing but spin, because if Cameron needed to go down that route, he WOULD. How detached from real life and riddled with hypocrisy are these posh boys? www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jun/01/downing-street-rejects-iain-duncan-smith-plan-for-new-limit-on-child-benefitIDS loves benefits. His wife's family are paid in the order of 50k euros a year. They would no doubt argue that as major landowners they are entitled to every penny under the rules governing Common Agricultural Policy payments. No, IDS loves benefit payments. His principle objection is to the people to whom it is paid and it shouldn't be peasants!
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Post by dudleyhatter on Jun 27, 2015 15:49:51 GMT
The attacks yesterday, but more particularly the ones in Tunisia and France, bring home the true meaning of terrorism.
The thought of lying on the beach sunbathing suddenly becoming the centre of a bullet storm truly strikes terror.
RIP all the innocent victims.
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Post by bringbacklenwhite on Jun 27, 2015 18:25:44 GMT
The sad thing is that this could happen just about anywhere in the world today.
A very cowardly act.
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Post by gazz on Sept 28, 2015 15:19:55 GMT
Nasa scientists find evidence of flowing water on Mars:Researchers say discovery of stains from summertime flows down cliffs and crater walls raise odds of finding life on red planetSatellite images have identified narrow streaks that appear on slopes during warm seasons, lengthen, and then fade when conditions become cooler. Photograph: Nasa/JPL/University of Arizona/PALiquid water runs down canyons and crater walls over the summer months on Mars, according to researchers who say the discovery raises the odds of the planet being home to some form of life.The trickles leave long, dark stains on the Martian terrain that can reach hundreds of metres downhill in the warmer months, before they dry up in the autumn as surface temperatures drop.Images taken from the Mars orbit show cliffs, and the steep walls of valleys and craters, streaked with summertime flows that in the most active spots combine to form intricate fan-like patterns. Live Water on Mars: Nasa reveals briny flows on surface - liveNasa confirm discovery of summer watery flows on planet’s surface down cliffs and crater walls that raise odds of finding life on red planet Read moreScientists are unsure where the water comes from, but it may rise up from underground ice or salty aquifers, or condense out of the thin Martian atmosphere. “There is liquid water today on the surface of Mars,” Michael Meyer, the lead scientist on Nasa’s Mars exploration programme, told the Guardian. “Because of this, we suspect that it is at least possible to have a habitable environment today.”The water flows could point Nasa and other space agencies towards the most promising sites to find life on Mars, and to landing spots for future human missions where water can be collected from a natural supply. Some of the earliest missions to Mars revealed a planet with a watery past. Pictures beamed back to Earth in the 1970s showed a surface crossed by dried-up rivers and plains once submerged beneath vast ancient lakes. Earlier this year, Nasa unveiled evidence of an ocean that might have covered half of the planet’s northern hemisphere in the distant past. But occasionally, Mars probes have found hints that the planet might still be wet. Nearly a decade ago, Nasa’s Mars Global Surveyor took pictures of what appeared to be water bursting through a gully wall and flowing around boulders and other rocky debris. In 2011, the high-resolution camera on Nasa’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter captured what looked like little streams flowing down crater walls from late spring to early autumn. Not wanting to assume too much, mission scientists named the flows “recurring slope lineae” or RSL.Researchers have now turned to another instrument on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to analyse the chemistry of the mysterious RSL flows. Lujendra Ojha, of Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, and his colleagues used a spectrometer on the MRO to look at infrared light reflected off steep rocky walls when the dark streaks had just begun to appear, and when they had grown to full length at the end of the Martian summer. Writing in the journal Nature Geosciences, the team describes how it found infra-red signatures for hydrated salts when the dark flows were present, but none before they had grown. The hydrated salts – a mix of chlorates and percholorates – are a smoking gun for the presence of water at all four sites inspected: the Hale, Palikir and Horowitz craters, and a large canyon called Coprates Chasma.“These may be the best places to search for extant life near the surface of Mars,” said Alfred McEwen, a planetary geologist at the University of Arizona and senior author on the study. “While it would be very important to find evidence of ancient life, it would be difficult to understand the biology. Current life would be much more informative.”The flows only appear when the surface of Mars rises above -23C. The water can run in such frigid conditions because the salts lower the freezing point of water, keeping it liquid far below 0C.“The mystery has been, what is permitting this flow? Presumably water, but until now, there has been no spectral signature,” Meyer said. “From this, we conclude that the RSL are generated by water interacting with percholorates, forming a brine that flows downhill.” John Bridges, a professor of planetary science at the University of Leicester, said the study was fascinating, but might throw up some fresh concerns for space agencies. The flows could be used to find water sources on Mars, making them prime spots to hunt for life, and to land future human missions. But agencies were required to do their utmost to avoid contaminating other planets with microbes from Earth, making wet areas the most difficult to visit. “This will give them lots to think about,” he said.For now, researchers are focused on learning where the water comes from. Porous rocks under the Martian surface might hold frozen water that melts in the summer months and seeps up to the surface. Another possibility is that highly concentrated saline aquifers are dotted around beneath the surface, not as pools of water, but as saturated volumes of gritty rock. These could cause flows in some areas, but cannot easily explain water seeping down from the top of crater walls. A third possibility, and one favoured by McEwen, is that salts on the Martian surface absorb water from the atmosphere until they have enough to run downhill. The process, known as deliquescence, is seen in the Atacama desert, where the resulting damp patches are the only known place for microbes to live.“It’s a fascinating piece of work,” Bridges said. “Our view of Mars is changing, and we’ll be discussing this for a long time to come.”Source article here
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Post by another_ruined_saturday on Sept 28, 2015 18:50:12 GMT
that genuinely is fascinating.
anybody seen 'the martian' by the way? i'm assuming it can't be as good as the book, because i thought that was properly gripping, funny, plausible, and all-round brilliant.
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Post by gazz on Sept 28, 2015 18:54:11 GMT
anybody seen 'the martian' by the way? i'm assuming it can't be as good as the book, because i thought that was properly gripping, funny, plausible, and all-round brilliant. Not yet, mate, but as long as it's better than Interstellar, which ironically featured Matt Damon as an Astronaut found castaway on a far away planet! Not a good start...
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Post by gazz on Oct 3, 2015 17:34:18 GMT
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Post by dudleyhatter on Oct 15, 2015 21:16:45 GMT
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Post by dudleyhatter on Oct 15, 2015 21:17:24 GMT
Number 4 is my favourite
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Post by Epworth Hatter on Oct 16, 2015 6:41:15 GMT
I like the line about pubs as community living rooms - not sure how universally true it is, mind! The line about not being afraid of your neighbors(sic) is true. It's not fear, as behind every smile is bitter envy as they jealously try to keep up with the Aubery-Jones'! That really made me chuckle this morning. Thanks for posting, duds
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Post by gazz on Oct 18, 2015 12:35:42 GMT
Amazon sues 1,000 'fake reviewers':Amazon has started legal action against more than 1,000 unidentified people it claims provide fake reviews on its website.
The online retailer said in the lawsuit, filed in the US on Friday, that its brand reputation was being tarnished by “false, misleading and inauthentic” reviews.
Amazon claims the 1,114 defendants it is suing peddle their false review service for as little as $5 (£3.25) on the website Fiverr, an online platform that offers minor tasks.
Amazon said it had found many of the fake reviewers – all termed “John Does” as the company said it was unaware of their real names – had requested review wordings from sellers and had used multiple accounts and IP addresses – unique numeric codes that identify a device in a network – to avoid being caught.
The e-commerce giant started its campaign against the alleged fake reviewers by hiring some of the Fiverr members, according to the court report.
In its complaint to King county superior court in Seattle, Amazon said: “A very small minority of sellers and manufacturers attempts [sic] to gain unfair competitive advantages by creating false, misleading, and inauthentic customer reviews for their products on Amazon.com.”
It added: “While small in number, these reviews threaten to undermine the trust that customers, and the vast majority of sellers and manufacturers, place in Amazon, thereby tarnishing Amazon’s brand.”
The legal action said: “Amazon is bringing this action to protect its customers from this misconduct, by stopping defendants and uprooting the ecosystem in which they participate.”
Amazon said there had been misleading five-star reviews and comments about products, such as: “This has lit up my life” about a USB cable. A bogus comment that said “definitely buying more ... I was impressed with how bright the lights on the cable are”, while another reviewer rated a product top marks and added the comment “cool charger”.
Amazon is not suing Fiverr, a startup that raised $30m from investors last year, as the company says in its terms and conditions advertising for services such as writing bogus reviews is banned.
Fiverr did not dispute Amazon’s allegations regarding its freelancers. “As Amazon noted, we have worked closely together to remove services that violate our terms of use, and respond promptly to any reports of inappropriate content,” the online task company said in a statement.
Fiverr was also aware that Amazon, which describes itself as “Earth’s most customer-centric company”, forbids fictional or paid-for reviews.
Although Amazon has tried to remove the adverts for reviewers on the website, it said that doing this does not address the “root cause” of the issue or provide a deterrent to others.
The latest legal action comes after Amazon sued a number of websites in April for selling fake reviews.
The online retailer is also using artificial intelligence to tackle the issue of fake product reviews and inflated star ratings, it was revealed earlier this year.
According to Amazon, the AI system will bring more accurate reviews to the top, using them to create a star rating.
Previously, star ratings were simply an average of all reviews, which allowed fake reviews to heavily influence the first-glance rating, even if verified purchasers had slated the product.Guardian article here
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