clort

No, a Shah is a hereditary ruler (a King), whereas an Ayatollah is more like a Bishop (ie a religious leader, but not the top guy such as the Pope in Roman Catholicism)

The short term problem is, that the government are responsible for sacking themselves in the short term - and those clowns just refused to, which is not the case for the current government who are replacements for the clowns who the electorate firmly sacked at their first opportunity.

So re your comment: 'For the UK govt its business as usual', not really.

You do not have to like the government of the day, but don't fall into the trap of believing that they are all the same.

You are wrong. Microsoft was not asked to open the file format. There was an open file format already accepted as an ISO standard, so now they needed to make their product compliant with an ISO standard because companies around the world were going to prioritise that in their purchases. They did everything they could to ensure that their format was both an ISO standard, and impossible for somebody else to implement.

Perhaps what's new is that a mainstream organisation is posting articles where their reporters have witnessed such attacks.

I've seen stuff on youtube, I've seen internet articles, I've seen thinly veiled references but this is a respectable organisation reporting what they have seen, on the front page.

tbh this is to be expected? I don't read UN reports, I expect reporters to read them and distill the information. I don't read research papers, I expect journalists to read them and present something reasonable to a layman. I don't read the minutae of the laws being passed, I expect lawyers and politicians to debate the finer points.

So perhaps my expectations are not being met? Unfortunately I don't have time to pay attention to everything.

is it an urban legend, or do you have reference for that?

Largely a property development company, named after a geological feature "Woodbine Sand", in Texas

[1] https://woodbinedevelopment.com/woodbinedevelopment.com/our-...

I mean, there is this Icelandic guy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gu%C3%B0laugur_Fri%C3%B0%C3%BE...

who actually did swim 6km in freezing waters after his vessel sank in 1984..

Little information there about them, but I find it kind of surprising that the suspects are even UK based..

If I recall (its been 25+ years and my copy is in storage), they went there to wait for other civilisations to develop. They were truly early life and there was literally nobody else and they determined that they would be waiting for millions of years, if not billions.

I don't know if it was this book, but the 'suspended animation' was basically pushing several large stars and neutron stars close enough together that the flat space between them was inside an encompassing event horizon, and there they waited, living their lives at an extremely slow (compared to the outside universe) pace.

Iran doesn't have nukes..

(yet, I guess)

As I lived in HK back in the 1970's I'm pretty sure that was not flat nylon ribbon at all in those days, but simply strips of split bamboo or shavings from the surface of a broken pole. It would make sense to transition to nylon, since that could be made on a spool rather than having to be created on site.

I've got used to how scanty UK scaffolding is now but at first it worried me that it would not be robust enough.

also a layman, but:

You could build houses from bricks, timber or poured concrete that all looked the same in the end. Their internal structures and methods of construction would be different, but they would have the same form.

I'm reading the GP's comment similarly.

> Wang has now given Kachouroff and DeMaster until May 5th to explain how this moronic bungling of legal practice came about.

I don't really understand why this, but then I'm not the judge. They already were asked, several times why the citations were inaccurate, but declined to offer any explanation. They were eventually asked specifically if they used generative AI for this and he admitted that he did. So what is the point of giving them until 5th of May? They already admitted malpractice, so refer them for disciplinary proceedings already! These lawyers are not children who did not know what they were doing, they have had training in law and have sworn to follow the rules on their professional conduct with full awareness of what those rules are. Consequences need to follow, or else the behaviour will be considered acceptable.

It will not be permanent, she can have two babies but they will remove the womb afterwards

As I understand it, the court ruled that specifically within the text of the 2010 Equality Act, where it says 'woman' with no qualifier, that refers only to biological females. I do not know how many such places there are, but other parts of the act do apparently refer to other women and that they should not be discriminated against in the same way.

The court is really saying that the lawmakers did not specify properly what they meant in certain cases and that they should probably modify those sections (they are carefully not to tell Parliament what to do), which can be done and does sometimes get done when such things crop up.

Its not an OS update, its a Google Play Services update .. so if they still apply you would get it

I found it strange that things like 'prettier settings screens' and 'improved connection with cars and watches' would be included in Google Play Services. Surely those things are part of the OS not part of a thing which helps you access the Play store?

I've been using a LineageOS (prev. Cyanogenmod) phone for years and have never installed any google stuff so I don't get these updates anyway.

If you want to learn how to sail and actually how to sail as the person in charge, you need to be in a dinghy. Its small enough that every thing you do will affect the course and speed, you can feel every little difference and nobody else will confuse the issue by moving or changing anything without you noticing. Sure, having instructors around giving you tips is necessary but you are doing it and the feedback is immediate.

see also, "The Lives of Others" film, set in East Germany.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lives_of_Others

Its a bit like when you are a two-bit loser but have a private island where you can do whatever you like, and invite every celebrity you can find over to party every weekend, then start complaining that they haven't paid any of the island running costs and that they are all spongers because you are the main attraction of the island parties.

I bought windscreen wipers for my car recently, the previous owner was my mother and the man in the shop said 'oh, 2018 was the last time they were replaced'. So, more information seems to be available to those who know..

(and, it was me who replaced the wiper blades then so I know it was right)

The person driving the destruction of the government services in the USA is apparently self identified as a heavy ketamine user.

When you feed off decaying matter, hosting a colony of bugs which go out daily, bring back food and leave waste all around your environment sounds like a pretty good strategy when you don't have any way to move to better pastures?

The armour needs to be quite flexible in this area anyway as your hips and legs need to bend. they just used flaps of chainmail rather than seal you in. Look at some images.

Also, I don't really understand how they delivered letters letting people know that they had been fired but were struggling to rescind the letters because "we do not have a good way to get in touch with those personnel"

Did they just hand them a note saying "your fired" and escort them out of the building?

That reminds me of the Microsoft of 20+ years ago, I remember reading an interview with Bill Gates where he had been frustrated with something in the new software and tried to pursue getting it fixed, but was stonewalled and diverted until he simply gave up. Contrasting this with Steve Jobs reportedly being a massive dickhead, barging into developer offices, shouting and screaming and firing people who didn't jump to do what he wanted immediately, but the Apple software worked and didn't have the cruft in the end.

> I wonder if the leap between a fish and a mouse is less than the distance between a mouse and a human?

No, mice are mammals just like humans. Fish were around long before mammals even existed.

The way I read it, this is reportage from a person who worked with the ship about things which happened some months ago. There is nothing to say this equipment was still on board.

> They said no further equipment returned to the ship after it was offloaded for analysis, to their knowledge

it sounds like you are suggesting it might be turtles all the way down?

if it was dislodged, all the mass it had vacuumed up would go with it?