sideways

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• Commented on Ever Young?
  I think society should call an ironing truce and everyone should just pretend that the technology to remove crinkles from shirts does not exist. The time and energy saved would be considerable. I don't iron shirts because the look of...
• Commented on Ever Young?
  I wonder if this is the flip side of what one 80-something writer at the Scottish Review described as the sense that "if you live long enough, it is your fate to end up an living as an exile in...
• Commented on A purely theoretical dilemma
  On the very limited information provided concerning the scenario, I would say 'yes' if only because it is being strongly hinted that we aren't really being given a choice at all and, whatever my views on autonomy and liberty and...
• Commented on But it's not April 1st yet!
  Thanks for the link to the Skorzeney/MOSSAD story. Fascinating. It was a long time ago I read Use of Weapons, but I couldn't help but think of Cheradine Zakalwe...
• Commented on All that is old is new again (heavy politics dance remix)
  I've long thought the follow up ought to be: "And what is a lizard?" "Someone whom people vote for..."...
• Commented on On the lack of cultural estrangement in SF
  This offers a reasonable summary of how I understand the term, and I work with lawyers on this sort of thing: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_personality...
• Commented on On the lack of cultural estrangement in SF
  Recently, for NaNoWriMo, I wrote something (which probably should have been a 10k word short story) about time travel between 1994 and 2014, and even in this short time period, I think we forget just how much has changed. I'm...
• Commented on Leading question
  Absent environmental collapse, which I certainly wouldn't rule out, I'm not sure things will be any more different in 2034 than 2014 is from 1994. I'm a bit sceptical about the 'beige dictatorship' concept. I can't help thinking it's a...
• Commented on Some thoughts on turning 50
  For my tombstone?: Immortality Fail. Or "Here lies... which wasn't part of the plan." No lessons, age thus far at least, has brought me no great wisdom....
• Commented on The referendum question
  Disaster would likely come from how much history the typical Scot tends to drag along as part of his/her nationalistic baggage/self-identity. So -- how divisive are the Scots? How much does family/clan history/tradition matter in this? Has late 20th century...
• Commented on The referendum question
  An interesting post. I find myself in the odd position of being a leftish, Green voter who'll be lining up with the Tories and the Orange Order and all sorts of others I wouldn't want to associate with, to vote...
• Commented on Service update
  I'll be voting no, for a reason I don't hear either side talk about very much which is that, should Scotland become a country, there is the real possibility that it will start to matter which side of that border...
• Commented on World Cup: engage Grinch mode now!
  I've been merrily ignoring the football and watching the live streaming coverage of the Le Mans 24hr race instead. A minority pursuit I don't doubt, but it was looking rather interesting until about an hour ago - twenty seconds between...
• Commented on Rule 34, meet Kafka
  Generally, it's illegal between 14 and 18 if the person is subject to some coercion I would have thought that sex with someone who has been subjected to coercion is illegal regardless of their age. Isn't that, um, rape? (This...
• Commented on Rule 34, meet Kafka
  As resident legal anorak, it's not a strict liability offence. Section 52A(2) of the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982 provides for defences that the images were sent without having been requested and had not been kept for an unreasonable length...
• Commented on Me, talking
  The DeLorean is just a Renault 20 with a bit of movie fairydust sprinkled on it. Go ahead and engage the flux capacitors, I say. Of the 1980s parts-bin specials, I always thought Ford's RS200 a much more elegant beast....
• Commented on Unbreakable (part2)
  Let me phrase it another way. Why is it that whenever a male commits a crime his gender is not associated with that crime? My crack at an answer to the question: Because it's unusual. Males committing crime is the...
• Commented on Understanding Reader Reviews
  Where I do find aggregate ratings of the kind produced by GoodReads helpful is in getting a hint as to where to start with an author I've discovered. Generally speaking, I've found star-ratings a good guide to the relative quality...
• Commented on Zoom-Zoom
  I'm reminded of something that another rally driver from the same era, Michele Mouton, said of the crowds "If you want to be competitive, you have to pretend they are not people. They are trees, and of course, you don't...
• Commented on Zoom-Zoom
  Hi Stina I'm not much of a petrolhead, to put it mildly, heading towards my late 30s without having ever learned to drive. But I have borrowed a friend's 2-stroke kart once, and there's nothing like doing 90+mph an inch...