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Morkonan
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Post by Morkonan » Tue, 28. Nov 17, 15:14

pjknibbs wrote:Most car thefts are opportunistic in nature, though, so unless you have a particularly valuable car you just need to slow the thief down enough that they choose to go after another target. Otherwise, you might as well just leave the doors unlocked and the keys in the ignition, right, since the car's only going to get stolen anyway?
Well, "opportunistic" isn't the word I'd choose. I'd just agree that whether or not one's own car is a target to be stolen relies on a variety of variables. Some car thefts are not opportunistic in the least, but planned, especially when it comes down to certain desirable cars. Even though most "Grand Theft Auto" type movies are laughable, there are certainly cars that are in demand, either because of their desirability OR because they are particularly easy to steal. "Professional" thieves will target specific models and even individual ones.

In the US, I think, IIRC, most automobile thefts are inspired by the thieves wanting the auto to use in the commission of another crime.

But... a car thief isn't going to indulge their "opportunistic" habits when they see a juicy 1973 Toyota Celica left unattended... :)

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Post by felter » Tue, 28. Nov 17, 17:03

Surely there are more important things happening in the world, well at least more important than the news about someone getting married (yesterday) and where they are getting married (today), being the main news headlines.

Onto some good news, well good news for others as it doesn't effect me. :roll: Viagra is to be sold as an over the counter drug, so if any man that has a droopy problem, will no longer have to go to the doctor or buy the stuff illegally. Did I mention I don't need the stuff, not just that I can't take it due to other medication I take. :D
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Post by Alan Phipps » Tue, 28. Nov 17, 19:36

@ Morkonan: When I was working in Australia for 2 years I bought an old battered Nissan Bluebird estate as my runabout. Most working days I drove to and parked it at a suburban rail station in Melbourne to commute into the centre. It was so old and battered that I thought it fairly unattractive to thieves, but I still took the usual security precautions.

One day, I got back to the station after work and it was gone. The police later told me that mine was one of 5 cars stolen from the station carpark that day, the others being new and expensive models. My car later turned up abandoned locally and fairly intact apart from pulled door and ignition locks and with several extra miles on the clock. There was the obvious fresh mark of a heavy toolbox upon the roof.

It seems likely that my old banger estate was not just joy-ridden or used as a cheap taxi home as I first thought but was stolen to take team members and tools to where they were going to strip parts from the other stolen cars and maybe to ferry those parts to their dealer workshops. My car was obviously of sufficient utility but unremarkable enough to meet their desire not to be noticed during their operation.

So having an uninteresting car is not a total deterrent against 'professional' theft. :wink:
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Post by Morkonan » Wed, 29. Nov 17, 00:30

Oh.... wow.

IK Gives OTC approval for Viagra

...

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

That's like repackaging rat poison as a "natural supplement." Some guys will get their favorite toy back for the first time in years, then keel over from a heart-attack...

I'm all about making drugs available to those who need them and do think that a person's sexual life is a very real "Quality of Life Issue." But, Viagra OTC? That's... that's nuts.

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Post by pjknibbs » Wed, 29. Nov 17, 08:27

felter wrote:Surely there are more important things happening in the world, well at least more important than the news about someone getting married (yesterday) and where they are getting married (today), being the main news headlines.
I'm perfectly OK with the Royal Family as a general rule, but I do think the level of obsequiousness toward them shown by our news media is a bit OTT. It was most ridiculous back when Princess Diana died--you would have thought she was the second incarnation of Christ, not a relatively minor royal who was no longer even together with her husband Charles.

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Post by Golden_Gonads » Wed, 29. Nov 17, 09:19

pjknibbs wrote:I'm perfectly OK with the Royal Family as a general rule, but I do think the level of obsequiousness toward them shown by our news media is a bit OTT. It was most ridiculous back when Princess Diana died--you would have thought she was the second incarnation of Christ, not a relatively minor royal who was no longer even together with her husband Charles.
She'd worked a Trump-like campaign to get her noticed and it worked. Like him, she needed to be the centre of attention or she got stroppy, that continued even after death.

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Post by felter » Wed, 29. Nov 17, 15:24

So a worker phones his boss after turning up for work:

Worker: Hey Boss I just turned up at the yard and someone has been using it for fly-tipping.
Boss: Damn it to hell and back, have they dumped much.
Worker: Well it's just the one thing really.
Boss: Yeah well that doesn't sound too bad what have the dumped.
Worker: EH, I think you need to come and see it for yourself.

While the phone call may be fiction, the fly-tipping is not. That has to be one of the ultimate things ever to be dumped on someone.
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Post by pjknibbs » Wed, 29. Nov 17, 16:57

Yeah, I saw that one. Can't help but wonder how much it cost for the heavy lifting machinery presumably needed to move that house!

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Post by Alan Phipps » Wed, 29. Nov 17, 19:00

I wonder what happened to all the helium party balloons?
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Post by CBJ » Wed, 29. Nov 17, 19:15


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Post by Morkonan » Wed, 29. Nov 17, 21:10

Golden_Gonads wrote:She'd worked a Trump-like campaign to get her noticed and it worked. Like him, she needed to be the centre of attention or she got stroppy, that continued even after death.
Uh... That'd be the publicists for the Royal Family, since she was such a big hit. I doubt she started off by demanding more press coverage for herself.

All that publicity served the UK very, very, well, by the way. Up until certain someones refused to stop putting certain bits into other certain someones, then it all sort of went pear-shaped and backfired.

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Post by Morkonan » Wed, 29. Nov 17, 21:29

And, watch through to the end...

Avengers: Infinity War Trailer

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Post by Skism » Wed, 29. Nov 17, 21:31

WOW :o :o

How do you steal an entire house?
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Post by mrbadger » Fri, 1. Dec 17, 09:13

pjknibbs wrote:
I'm perfectly OK with the Royal Family as a general rule, but I do think the level of obsequiousness toward them shown by our news media is a bit OTT. It was most ridiculous back when Princess Diana died--you would have thought she was the second incarnation of Christ, not a relatively minor royal who was no longer even together with her husband Charles.
I was still a nurse, managing a Trauma ward when she died. I got into the ward that day to discover my staff had built a goddam ALTER by our nurses station for her :o

And they kept insisting on stopping there all the time to stop to 'pay their respects', like she was a deity or something. Considering we still had a busy ward to run, this was not easy for me to cope with.

Rather than cause a scene I let it stay for the morning, but by the afternoon I had them take it down. I got some complaints, but they'd had their opportunities to cry and waste time, and we'd got behind on enough things that they couldn't argue it wasn't an issue.

Plus, I was in charge.

And of course we were a Trauma Ward, not a place of idol worship :evil:
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Post by greypanther » Fri, 1. Dec 17, 11:56

Tracker001 wrote:It's a Pilot thing: LA Cntr Speed Check
Excellent, at least to my sense of humour. :)
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Post by felter » Fri, 1. Dec 17, 17:20

greypanther wrote:
Tracker001 wrote:It's a Pilot thing: LA Cntr Speed Check
Excellent, at least to my sense of humour. :)
Nope I like it too.

So here's one.

Were going to the zoo, LOL, obvously that isn't the story, nope though it is a first rate classic kiddie song. No this is about what the Chinese see when they go to the newest zoo to open in china, where their penguins are the best in the world, it's the only place where you can see them.
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Post by Morkonan » Fri, 1. Dec 17, 17:42

greypanther wrote:
Tracker001 wrote:It's a Pilot thing: LA Cntr Speed Check
Excellent, at least to my sense of humour. :)
Same here - Loved it!

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Post by Morkonan » Fri, 1. Dec 17, 20:09

Well.... darn.

Stellar Scientists reduce chances of life on exoplanets.

TLDR: The most common star in the Milky Way is a red dwarf star. The "Habitability Zone" for a planet orbiting a star has been based on an assumed surface temperature. However, this proposal states that the "solar wind" coming from the nearby red dwarf would effectively scrub a planet's atmosphere, making it unstable and the planet would eventually lose it, causing all sorts of problems, like liquid water effectively being "blown off" and unable to precipitate in what we consider to be a natural "water cycle." IOW - No "water planets" as have been popularized in discussions of newly discovered exoplanets.

The commonly occurring "red dwarf" variable surrounding the "Habitable Zone" argument just got a bit more complex.

IMO, this raises the question: "Can we detect an active magnetic, protective, field in exoplanets?" I think it should be "possible" but... really, really, difficult. Indirect measurements are currently possible for some situations, but direct measurements aren't yet possible. Indirect measurements might be in the "good enough" range of confidence, but I'm not sure that's good enough to bet the lives of a Colonization crew on...

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Post by felter » Sat, 2. Dec 17, 03:19

Poor, Poor Kaspersky, I genuinely feel sorry for them. They have a good AV product, they have done a hell of a lot in the fight against cyber crime, and due to no fault of their own they find themselves in trouble just because they are Russian, as it just so happens that the Russian government is one of the biggest cyber criminals around. I do hope they get it all sorted out, because it would be pretty bad to lose them in the fight.

Checking my link and of course I hut a wall asking for money so here a reuters news feed on the story. I would have used the BBC but there story is pretty badly done in my eyes
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