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kinetic

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About kinetic

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  1. My partner was robbed by two women at that Morrisons store a few years ago. We reported it to the police, the police asked US to ring Morrisons (isn't that err, their job??) and ask if they had any CCTV. It turned out they did (!!!), they'd watched her enter her pin in and then stole her purse from the pram she was pushing (low lifes!) and they then used the cash machines outside. We got a call a couple of hours later from the police who said they couldn't use the footage (from the cash machines) because it was too low definition. We rang the store, it turned out they hadn't even been to check the footage (they just rang and talked to the manager, which is who we were speaking to). I mean; they could have at least gone to store and looked at the footage and checked to see if they recognised the faces? No? Apparently not! The police (on this occasion) were absolutely useless. We claimed it back on the house insurance, which turned out to be a big mistake; the next time we went to register for house insurance the price had gone up by more than the amount we had claimed! I know already. I'm going to get called a liar and this story isn't true, and this doesn't ring true, and blah, blah, blah. I have to say though, we found the store quite helpful. It was the police who we felt had let us down (I'm not actually sure they did ANYTHING, apart from give us a crime number. Even after we'd done all the running around for them).
  2. Who do they owe? I was under the impression that local authorities aren't allowed to take out loans (there have been several court cases where banks and other financial institutions have been left up the proverbial creek without a paddle after lending to a local authority, or selling financial services to a local authority which the courts subsequently found to be disguised loans).
  3. As you mentioned connecting them to the PC one thing you need to watch for is that a lot of the headphones will either come with a Dolby surround sound processing unit "built in" (as a box on the cable - with one of the optical cables to connect to an optical output), or sold separately as an add-on (as is often the case with Turtle Beach headsets, although I think at least one of their headsets come with it built in). These things actually sound pretty fantastic on the Xbox, PS3 and for watching Dolby (AAC) surround sound encoded movies, Blu-Rays or DVDs on your PC. When you get to PC gaming things start get a little more tricky! I fell into this exact trap (buying a DSS box for a PC). The problem is that very few games on the PC are encoded with the compatible Dolby Digital surround (as they assume gamer's will connect to an audio receiver or connect speakers independently using the multiple jacks provided on game cards rather than the optical out - I think it's basically a licencing issue, they have to pay a few pence per unit sold and very few people require than functionality so they don't include it in many games). So very few games come encoded with Digital Dolby 5.1 which is sent over optical (the ones that do are often console conversions, as practically all 360 and PS3 games send Dolby over optical, so the programmers don't need to "needlessly" add it in!). It was just my luck that the first game I tried (I think it was either Sleeping Dogs or Just Cause 2), on my newly arrived Christmas present (Turtle Beach headset and Ear-Force DSS - Dolby Digital 5.1/7.1 Surround Sound set) DID support Digital Dolby on the PC! This was rather unfortunate as it led to much confusion as I was blown away by the sound, then naturally tried a succession of other games to be left totally, well, not blown away. They just sounded over-bassy and distorted! It was only after a couple of days that I noticed (when I started a movie) that a light lights up when the source is Dolby Digital. I then played around a bit and noticed it only lit up on a couple of games and just stayed blank for the rest. Much head scratching later I took to the internet and it appears you need a sound card capable of Dolby Digital Live processing for it to change the surround sound processed in-game to the optical output for games which don't output DSS. A few motherboard with Realtek sound support it onboard (I have an Asus motherboard with Realtek and sadly mine doesn't), otherwise you're looking at buying a new sound card with the "Dolby Digital Live" feature which, as the name suggests, encodes Dolby Digital in real time (Turtle Beach themselves used to make one, but for some strange reason no longer do). They're not cheap! The Asus Xonar DX 7.1 PCI-Express Dolby Digital Sound Card is one such card for example and will set you back around £80! Confusingly many sound cards say they support Dolby Digital (pretty much all of them in fact, even the really cheap ones), this is different to Dolby Digital Live, which is the feature you require to run a DSS unit! Like I said, you'll find the occasional PC game that does support Dolby Digital out of the box for these units to pick up Dolby Digital Surround (over optical output), but they are rare. If you take away the DSS attachment and just plug the normal headset into the audio out jack you get a much better sound quality (on games that aren't DSS). So my DSS box is now permanently attached to the Xbox (which it sounds great on btw! It makes a real improvement over just using the headset).
  4. Went past this earlier. Must have been just after whatever it was occurred because the tram in front of us pulled up as it couldn't get past the ambulance on the road (other cars and the bus I was on were overtaking the tram as the ambulance was just slightly on the tram track). Police there too. I only noticed one person on the pavement (kind of opposite the chippy on City Road) with the ambulance crew attending to them. I never noticed the car embedded in the shop. TBH I just thought someone had slipped on the icy pavement or something, but further up City Road (just after the cross roads towards Intake) there was a couple of police cars and they'd taped off part of the road around another car. No idea if this car was also involved or if it was totally unrelated (it's a good half mile or so away from the first incident so may have been coincidental). Anyway, hope all involved are okay. It looked like a serious incident just judging from the amount of people who were standing around the area looking concerned. Edit: Actually, I'm not even sure if that car is embedded in the shop (on the picture in the link above), maybe it's just parked in front of the shop? Only had a quick look at your link before posting and a glance can be deceiving!
  5. I've got GW2 (necer played 1). I'm struggling to get into it a bit tbh (I think that's partly because it came out at the wrong time for long term commitment, there's just been such a huge number of games come out recently that are vying for my attention: Forza Horizon, PES13, F1 2012, Halo 4, Football Manager 2013, etc...) The last MMO I played seriously was WoW and GW2 is so different (I tried loads of others, but struggled to get into them). In many ways the changes are for the better, but one thing it lacks (this is probably a positive) is the completely addictive, overwhelming nature of WoW; where everything else in your life gets completely taken over by playing it. You can dip in an out of GW2, which is great, but I just think they should have maybe released it at a time other than before Christmas, which is when every other game franchise drops a ton of releases on your doorstep! It's not the best time to release a game designed to drop in and out of (as you'll spend most of your time out of it).
  6. I've had online communications (from strangers) muted on my xbox(es) since the first Gears of War came out! Playing online really is better when you don't have to interact with total morons. Sorry in advance, I know this is xenophobic; but why the hell couldn't America have adopted French or German or Spanish as their official language??? Life online would be so much more pleasant if they didn't share our language!!!
  7. It works with Forza Horizon (at least on the iPad it does). It displays the map. You can drag and zoom around the map in the usual tablet/phone method and find races then click on a race and it will update your GPS on the console. Quite niffty, if only for novelty purposes. It certainly shows it has potential in games (I imagine it would be really useful in something like an RPG where you could have your inventory, equipped equipment, skills, XP, money, etc all on a separate screen).
  8. That's what I always thought too, but it appears to be a misconception. David Nutt disagrees (and far be it for me to argue with the leading expert in neuropsychopharmacology!). He says 10% of all cannabis users are physically addicted to the drug. He mentions it briefly in "Drugs - Without the Hot Air" (well worth a read!), and references the following document: "Dependence on cannabis alone is, unquestionably, a real phenomenon [1, 2]. Studies among cannabis users have revealed that when they stop they experience physical withdrawal as part of a dependence syndrome characterised by decreased appetite, weight loss, lethargy, irritability, mood changes, tremor, muscle pain, sweating and insomnia. There is also a psychological craving for the substance. Reinstating the drug terminates these symptoms. It has also been shown that cannabis dependence is associated with an altered function of cannabinoid receptors; and that withdrawal can be precipitated by a cannabinoid receptor antagonist." Source: ACMD: Cannabis: Classification and Public Health - 2008 (Page 13. section 6.2)
  9. House of Commons. Free house(s), expenses (fancy a nice £4k Persian rug to adorn your luxury mansion? Don't worry, the tax payer will pick up the bill!), cars, backhanders, free Cayman Isle/Swiss bank accounts, free trips abroad, tax subsidised booze in the Commons bar, paid "jobs" as "consultants" for companies who want you to act (vote) in their interests, free meals, etc.
  10. Yeah, cheers for just accusing me of being a heroin addict! Sorry, but no cigar! (Sorry to disappoint you but I don't even drink!) While we're banding about baseless accusations; you're not that BNP idiot who got banned from here years ago are you? He had the same sentence structure as you do (i.e. commas and full stops preceding the first letter of the next word instead of being placed after the last letter of the last word, amongst other things)! I never heard of you until this thread. I just noticed you typed like he did, so looked up your post history and found you seem to spend quite a lot of time on islamic and race threads and the BNP are mentioned in quite a few of your posts It's that long ago I can't even remember the fool's name! Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree. Maybe you're not him. Maybe you've no idea what I'm banging on about. But I have my suspicions
  11. We had a child a couple of weeks ago. During childbirth the mother (my partner) was given heroin (Diamorphine) by a doctor. Are you saying the Doctor was a "quack" who deliberately gave my partner, and a premature baby, a harmful substance during childbirth? That sounds rather negligent of him! Would you suggest I ring a no-win/no-fee lawyer and sue him? (both baby and mother are perfectly fine and healthy by the way) Giving pure heroin to women who are in labour is common the world over. The only reason it's not regularly prescribed to those in regular chronic pain (except those with terminal illnesses) is because you quickly gain a tolerance towards opiates/opiods, meaning you have to continently increase the dose for the pain relief to keep working! So saying heroin is safe except for what it is mixed with isn't "bleating". It's a fact! In moderate doses it's better (wrong word - "less harmful"!) for your body than alcohol or tobacco is!
  12. Having nothing to do all day, being stuck in the house 24/7, getting up in the afternoon, etc seems like an absolute luxury to those who do work everyday (and look after family and have other commitments), and only get a lie-in every-once in a blue moon. But when it's your daily routine, every day for years on end, it does nothing but destroy your self-confidence, excludes you from society, leaves you battling (financially) to survive, and often brings on depression (and possibly other mental health problems). In my late teens I thought being unemployed was pretty cool (in fact - when you're in your teens it actually isn't so bad. You have plenty of other things to keep you occupied and as long as you can get by financially; you have the energy, interests and friends and the lack of commitments to keep living a fairly exciting life. But these days, now I'm older, I go stir crazy if I'm in the house for more than 3 running, I can feel my self-esteem dropping and depression increasing. Even worse, it makes me want to seek isolation, it's a vicious circle! I'm lucky enough to have a family to keep me occupied and I've usually only had brief bouts of unemployment, but even so, if I was unlucky enough to face a long time unemployed on benefits (and the way things are going that's a possibility for any of us, no matter how safe we think our jobs are and how qualified we are!), I'd take up some sort of community based voluntary work, and I have done on occasions before, between jobs. So long as you pick something you're interested in, you'll gain knowledge, sometimes qualifications, friends, something to stick on your CV, somewhere to get a reference from and perhaps, most importantly of all, your self-confidence back! I think a lot of long term unemployed people need help to get back on the right track (and forcing them to sweep floors in supermarkets for their benefits or go to some hole like A4E isn't the answer). But then you need to ask yourself, there are millions of people unemployed in the UK and most of them WANT to work, why are we forcing the people who don't want to work into jobs when there are plenty of people who not only want to work but NEED to work (family commitments, mortgage, etc)? It just seems bizzare that as unemployment levels are at all time high they are punishing benefit claimants at every opportunity (not only financially, but mentally too), including sending them into slave labour for multinational companies which creates more unemployment: WTF would Tesco hire someone to stack shelves when they can just get some unfortunate unemployed workfare victim to do it for free (under threat of benefit sanctions) instead? Great thinking Gideon, as well as punishing someone for the crime of being poor, you've also just made some other poor bugger unemployed! And that's not to mentioned the ATOS scandal, I honestly don't know how these people can sleep at night! And as for the The Daily Mail, it wants everyone to hate everyone (including themselves) - every article is hate filled. It's a paper mainly read by women so there are plenty of women (celebrities) who have been snapped and the worst looking photographs picked so they appear to be to fat or too thin, don't wear any make up and it makes them look ugly/covered in make up and it makes them looks ugly, showing stretch marks when they've just had a baby (etc). Then they'll occasionally build some up as being perfect, before knocking them down again (notice how they love the word "curves"? Its practically an editorial requirement in any article beautifying a woman - it suggests perfection - perfect weight, perfect shape, perfect breasts, perfect legs, perfect stomach, ect). These are posed photographs taken by professional photographers and then photoshoped. Nobody looks like that! Not even the person in the picture! In "Daily Mail World" everything is somebody else's fault (e.g., poverty is the fault of the poor!). It's a despicable publication. I imagine being a Mail reader must be the most depressing activity you can engage in. Everything and everybody in the world is malevolent. You (the reader) are reminded, page after page, day after day of how imperfect you are and imperfect the world around you is! Look at "THIS" celebrity, wealth, success, beauty! Oh and look at this house! It all breeds anger and resentment. Throw in a bit of random nationalism, sexism, racism, xenophobia, anti-immigration, religious discrimination or class prejudice and you now have the targets for the anger, moral panic, and resentment that the two-bit rag has caused you to feel! "Them and Us - and if wasn't for 'Them', we would all be perfect too!!!" it shouts to it's audience every day - bought up and swallowed every day by millions of deluded, masochistic, sad (compounded by the fact that they read the crap in the first place!), fascist idiots. We're all meant to be different. 7 billion of us and no 2 people are exactly the same. We all have our hang ups (about our bodies and our lives). We're not all rich and own a yacht, a mansion and drive a Ferrari Enzo. We don't all weigh (an unhealthy) 7 stone. We all suffer from self-doubt and (hopefully only occasionally) misery and depression. But we're all unique. THAT is what makes us perfect! The dream the the Daily Hate fills your head with (identikit perfect people, living their perfect idyllic lifestyles according to whatever is popular and in vogue at the time of writing) doesn't exist. And if it did, I'd jump off a bridge!
  13. They are effectively forcing this with changes to the housing benefit laws. They now only pay you for the amount of rooms THEY assess you need (rather than rooms you actually have or use). For example, if you live in a three bedroom house and have 2 children, one girl and one boy, they will assess that you need a three bedroom house and pay full housing benefit. If you have three boys, they will assess that you only require a two bedroom house and will only pay you the amount for a two bedroom house despite the fact you need a three bedroom house. This has lead to some crazy situations where people have, say 2, 8 and 16 year old boys and are expected to have them all sleep in the same room. Where as someone who has a 2 year old boy and 3 year old girl are entitled to be paid the full amount for a three bedroom house! And before anyone jumps on the "bloody scroungers should go out and get a job" bandwagon. Many people who claim (a proportion of) housing benefit are working families!
  14. I've been reading David Nutt's new book "Drugs - Without the Hot Air" (well worth reading btw!). His position too is decriminalisation, and like you I couldn't get my head around it. Many of the major drug problems he identifies earlier in the book are linked (by him) towards the trade being controlled by organised crime and being unregulated (everything from violence, to purity/overdoses, how drug escalation and even addiction occurs). So I thought it was a strange position to take. Thinking about it a little bit more I'm wondering if he's taking that position because it's a stance that would sit easier with the middle majority (I think somewhere in the book he mentions over 50% of people surveyed agreed that some drugs should be decriminalised). Stating you think the government or private companies should start manufacturing, taxing and selling drugs in pharmacies or specialised drug stores is a far harder sell (for the majority of the public, most of whom are quite happy to pop out and buy a 12 pack from the supermarket!). I think he may be aware of this and sees decriminalisation as a first step towards eventually legalising and regulating drug sales. That's conjecture on my part, its just that a lot the points he makes in the book don't tally with his decriminalisation stance.
  15. Within the next few years this kind of thing, combined with the restriction of internet sites (filesharing sites, etc), privacy and tracking issues, pressure from IP content owners and lobby groups to crack down on file sharing (such as the forthcoming 3 strikes law, soon to be implemented), government controlled firewalls that block content, government snooping and other restrictions placed on web use will lead to a two tier internet. The current web (the one we use now), and a second "darknet", running on top of it. There are already various anonymous ways of accessing parts of the internet going back to before the web was even thought of! Proxy servers, anoNet, GNUnet, freenet, Tor are just a few examples! The problem has (so far) been that these services are split into separate networks, each running separate software and/or protocols and only a very tiny minority of internet users are even aware they exist let alone use them. It's only a matter of time before someone puts all this together (a peer to peer decentralised network, node to node encrypted traffic transmission masquerading as genuine web traffic, tor like gateways into the web, bit torrent style peer upload/download speed matching, paid for proxies for the extra cautious) into one single, easy to use, clear, well-written and publicised open-source package and it suddenly becomes very popular, very quickly. From that day on everything everyone does on the network is suddenly anonymous! The more people on the network the more bandwidth is available for use (something that holds back all the services above, people generally only use them when they want to actively use the service (i.e. download something), so the network is always congested with very few idle users/nodes). If people start to become over-concerned with privacy issues or the threat of a prison sentence if they have a moment of stupidity and post something on twitter or facebook that may land them in jail, or copyright owners continue demanding thousands of pounds off people because one of the kids downloaded some crappy x-factor song; "ordinary" internet users will be more inclined to join the network, and by doing so they provide the much needed "idle nodes" that are needed to keep traffic flowing. This is bad for everyone. Anonymity means people can do whatever they want, whenever they want without any means of tracking them down. Security services can't monitor jack. All that online intelligence gathering that's led to convictions of paedophiles and terrorists? Gone overnight! It's now all out there somewhere on the encrypted network instead of been available (and traceable) on the web. They may have an IP address that they can trace back to, but that IP address will be just the IP address of a node, it won't be the address of the person who requested/posted the data. You can forget any kind of regulations (including Injunctions), how can you regulate people if you can't find them? Similarly you can forget about trying to track users who download movies, music, games, applications, books, whatever - they're untraceable! Anyone can post anything they like about anybody, they could post your address, phone number, e-mail address, salary, names of your children and publicly issue threats against you and your family. You won't have a clue who it is, there's no point reporting it to the police because they can't trace the origin of the threat. Large numbers of drug deals are already done online, and I don't just mean online pharmacies, I mean illicit drugs, often in dealer quantities. Done over encrypted networks with untraceable virtual money. That's the problem when politicians, lobby groups such as the RIAA, and law makers get involved in technology they don't understand the consequences of their actions. There are millions of people smarter than them! (especially when it comes to creating solutions to barriers, using the internet to their advantage, programming around any blocks put in place, etc)! The internet (collectively) will ALWAYS be one step ahead of those who try and control it. They should have learned this from the Napster fiasco! You shut one site down and a hundred replace it, but some of those that replace it will be more cautious and add extra layers of protection. They start all over again and each time someone, somewhere outfoxes them and the idea gets copied and improved upon. The cat is out of the bag, the only way to stop it now would be to close down the entire 'net. Which is never going to happen, trillions upon trillions of pounds have been spent on it. The net runs everything from commercial transactions and the financial markets to keeping planes in the sky! The people who (think they) are in charge now are covered in cobwebs and ink (from using feathers to write with). They don't get it. They can't control it. Thankfully they will soon all die off and will (hopefully!) be replaced by people who have a clue (the next generation - the ones who grew up with technology and the internet and understand it!).
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