• (disco)

    frist:Poster

    Please enter a valid comment, ensuring that the first character is alphanumeric. Do not use special characters.
  • (disco)

    Never mind the download size; I like the fine print of MS installer.

    You are responsible for and must separately locate, read and accept these third party license terms.

    Except that they do give you a one-click button to install the 3rd-party software, including accepting their licenses, but no provision for finding out the terms of the licenses you are accepting.

    INB4: Nobody reads them anyway.

  • (disco) in reply to HardwareGeek
    HardwareGeek:
    INB4: Nobody reads them anyway.

    they are also highly likely to not be legally enforceale.

    but tht would require lawyers to find out.

  • (disco)

    The KTMB one is a bit more serious than that.

    It appears to have a max-length issue, such that in fact it speaks of German Democrat, the Dominican Repub, Equatorial Guin, and might (if they spelled out the full name) mention the "United States o".

    And "European Union" isn't a country.

  • (disco)
    Type the word "Self:" *followed by type of business*.
    [Emphasis by me.]

    All I notice in the Employer text box is "Self:", followed by nothing or a row of whitespaces.

    until you go to submit the form
    So the message doesn't appear the moment you type in the colon.

    What did I miss?

  • (disco) in reply to PWolff

    You didn't miss a thing.

    -> "Self:" followed by type of business. -> "first character is alphanumeric" but: first character is UNDEFINED.

    So, the only possible WTF is why this was authorized by the UX department. Oh wait, maybe the company does not have an UX department!?

  • (disco) in reply to Steve_The_Cynic
    Steve_The_Cynic:
    And "European Union" isn't a country.
    It has government. It has flag and anthem. It has its own territory. It has citizens. It maintains diplomatic relationships with other countries. It has all the features of an independent country except for an army (but then, Costa Rica and Liechtenstein don't have it either).
  • (disco)

    "Okay, I need Yellow Toner, sure, but it seems I have bigger, vaguer problems to tackle first," Josh P. wrote.

    Yes, your compulsion to make hard copies of your Simpsons porn collection...

  • (disco) in reply to Gaska
    Gaska:
    It has all the features of an independent country

    It does not issue passports.

  • (disco)
    Your AVG Trial version is going to expire soon
    -1 days is soon indeed.

    But I don't see any other WTF there - a trial version that installs with the free version and regularly appearing nag screens are quite common with free versions of commercial software of all kinds.

  • (disco)

    "Some websites take their good old time updating their sites," Paolo T. writes, "but considering East Germany (German Democratic Republic) hasn't been around since 1990, KTMB (Malaysian Railways) had better get with the program!"

    Actually, neither DDR nor BRD exist any more.

  • (disco) in reply to Eldelshell

    Oh really?

    I live in a country that calls itself "Bundesrepublik Deutschland" ...

  • (disco) in reply to Eldelshell
    Eldelshell:
    Actually, neither DDR nor BRD exist any more.

    Mentally, not much has changed since the GDR was swallowed by the FRG in 1990.

  • (disco) in reply to NedFodder
    NedFodder:
    It does not issue passports.
    The passports issued by member states have unified design and include the words "European Union" on the front cover, so it's almost as if it did.
  • (disco)
    A black and white printer able to output a full color photo?!
    Black is the last print cycle in four-color print. So, if you have four of those printers with different toner colors, no problem.
    *Sharp*, clear prints
    (*Edit:* emphasis by me)

    I've looked up the Xpress M2070W, it's a Samsung printer, and as Wikipedia states (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharp_Corporation), "Sharp announced it accepted a US$100 million investment from Samsung in March 2013.[11]" so there probably won't be name licence issues.

    But the German specs are a bit interesting - see http://www.samsung.com/de/consumer/printers-mfp/mfp/mono-laser-mfps/SL-M2070W/XEC

    "Max. monatlicher Arbeitszyklus" means "Max. monthly duty cycle"

    [image]
  • (disco) in reply to aliceif
    aliceif:
    I live in a country that calls itself "Bundesrepublik Deutschland" ...

    That's what the Matrix makes us believe.

  • (disco) in reply to PWolff
    PWolff:
    Eldelshell:
    Actually, neither DDR nor BRD exist any more.

    Mentally, not much has changed since the GDR was swallowed by the FRG in 1990.

    We recently had to clean up the cellar at my school because they were renovating that building and there was still chemistry stuff down there from our predecessors.

    While looking over all the assorted vials, tubes and whatnot, I noticed several sealed boxes with kyrillic signs and a sign "Made in GDR" printed on them. Lots and lots of test tubes. Oh well, at least those don't expire.

    We also found another box with literally a thousand test tubes in it. All of them coated with fine copper sulfate crystals.

    Then there was the big huge-ass barometer which still used liquid mercury. Fun was had when we discovered that it was leaking on both ends.

    Additional fun times ensued when we stumbled over a metal box with radioactive warning signs on them. Only to discover that it was empty. Because the actual radioactive samples were in the next (unmarked) box. Only alpha radiators, though.

    And the last item which made us a bit nervous was another metal box where the lock was so corroded that the key did not fit anymore. When we forced that open, there was another compartment inside, this one's lock even more corroded and almost welded shut due to the corrosion. However, before we tackled that lock, I took a look at the inventory paper sealed in plastic inside the box. It listed picric acid.

    Picric acid, when dried out and in crystalline form, is a primary explosive and sensitive to shock/friction. And after years of being in storage in such a "sealed" container, you could be certain that every last bit of water had evaporated long since.

    You can guess that we pried open the container with a bit of trepidation and I seriously considered calling the bomb squad.

    Luckily enough, there was only harmless stuff like mercury oxide, potassium cyanide and bromine in there. The latter of which had been responsible for all the corrosion.

  • (disco) in reply to Gaska
    Gaska:
    Steve_The_Cynic:
    And "European Union" isn't a country.
    It has government. It has flag and anthem. It has its own territory. ***It has citizens.*** It maintains diplomatic relationships with other countries. It has all the features of an independent country except for an army (but then, Costa Rica and Liechtenstein don't have it either).
    No, the EU doesn't have its own citizens. Its member states have citizens, and they have rights in other EU member states because they are citizens of their respective member states. However, while they are ***also*** citizens of the EU, you cannot be a citizen of the EU without also being a citizen of one (or more) of the member states. And what, pray, is the EU's ***own*** territory, distinct from the territories of the member states?
  • (disco) in reply to Rhywden
    Rhywden:
    picric acid

    Google yields about 2,140 results for

    Pikrinsäure Evakuierung Schule

    (as of 2015-07-31 14:17 CEST) 200 g or a 250 ml bottle of that stuff are seemingly sufficient to evacuate the complete school and nearby buildings.

    Rhywden:
    I seriously considered calling the bomb squad
    So you weren't one of the schools that have been mentioned for picric acid in the news?
  • (disco) in reply to PWolff

    No, but I knew about those incidents because we were actively searching for the stuff shortly after that. That was in another school, though, and I have been in my new school for only 2 years now.

    And we had enough to do with the actual chemical storage, so we tackled the cellar last.

  • (disco) in reply to Rhywden
    Rhywden:
    Then there was the big huge-ass barometer which still used liquid mercury. Fun was had when we discovered that it was leaking on both ends.
    Here in France, mercury-column sphygmomanometers (blood pressure meters to you, Chuckles) are not legal to sell, except on a doctor-to-doctor private sale basis. I didn't know this, and found it out when I commented to my médécin traitant on the different kinds of bp meters used by different doctors I had seen.

    And picric acid as such is sufficiently non-sensitive to be usable in artillery shells. Where it gets dangerous is when it reacts with metals to form picrates, because they are more sensitive than the acid.

    Rhywden:
    Additional fun times ensued when we stumbled over a metal box with radioactive warning signs on them. Only to discover that it was empty. Because the actual radioactive samples were in the *next* (unmarked) box. Only alpha radiators, though.
    "Only" alpha radiators?!? Polonium 210 is "only" an alpha radiator, although I think Alexander Litvinenko might have disputed the triviality that "only" brings to that statement.
  • (disco) in reply to PWolff
    PWolff:
    picric acid

    hmmm.... relatively low nitrogen content. i imagine it's fairly safe to handle with appropriate caution. unlike azidoazide azide.

    although i love this entry in the chemical data table for wikipedia: Boiling point > 300 °C (572 °F; 573 K) Explodes

  • (disco) in reply to accalia
    accalia:
    I imagine it's fairly safe to handle with appropriate caution

    So do I.

    It was used for dying wool for quite a time.

    My father worked with that stuff in chemistry lessons. We didn't, although it wasn't exactly prohibited then. I don't know when the hysteria began.

  • (disco) in reply to PWolff

    Well, I have experienced the results of a hydrazine experiment gone wrong (wasn't my experiment, though, just right next to it), so you'll excuse me if I'm approaching this stuff a bit more cautiously.

    Steve_The_Cynic:

    "Only" alpha radiators?!? Polonium 210 is "only" an alpha radiator, although I think Alexander Litvinenko might have disputed the triviality that "only" brings to that statement.

    If you don't ingest it, the stuff is quite harmless. And the "don't ingest it"-part is true for about 50% of my other chemicals, so...

  • (disco)

    Btw, maybe the yellow toner that is running low is made of picric acid crystals? That might explain the cryptic message.

  • (disco) in reply to Rhywden
    Rhywden:
    If you don't ingest it, the stuff is quite harmless. And the "don't ingest it"-part is true for about 50% of my other chemicals, so...

    hmm......

    okay here's one i've heard many times before...

    You have three small discs of metal. One is a moderate Alpha radiator, one is a moderate Beta radiator and one is a moderate Gamma radiator. You must put one in your pocket, swallow one, and throw the last one away. What are your choices?

    [spoiler]As I've always heard it, and i don't know if it's correct but... "Swallow the Gamma, Put the Alpha in your pocket and throw the Beta away"[/spoiler]

  • (disco) in reply to Steve_The_Cynic
    Steve_The_Cynic:
    "Only" alpha radiators?!? Polonium 210 is "only" an alpha radiator, although I think Alexander Litvinenko might have disputed the triviality that "only" brings to that statement.

    Alpha radiators are only a problem when they get inside you -- human skin and average clothing articles are both very effective at shielding against alpha particles.

    Now, if you had a Cobalt-60 source roaming around, then I'd be worried...

  • (disco) in reply to accalia

    Swallow gamma, pocket alpha, throw beta away.

    Though most of those are also heavy metals, so swallowing would be a bit problematic anyway. And I'm assuming the same rates of decay.

  • (disco) in reply to Rhywden

    well then. i did get that right.

    and the thought experiment helpfully does not mention what metal the discs are. Maybe they were coated with stainless steel to prevent nasty organomettalic reactions in your stomach

    as for the rates of decay, that's true as well. if the beta raditor has a half life of anything < a couple of seconds it may be a better idea to swallow beta instead of gamma, If my intiutive understanding of radioactive decay is correct (and assuming that you don't have to reswallow after you pass the disc you swallow)

    but that's also something that the thought experiment leaves unsaid so....

  • (disco) in reply to accalia
    accalia:
    if the beta raditor has a half life of anything < a couple of seconds

    and the resulting nucleus is stable

  • (disco) in reply to PWolff

    see?! that's the problem with the tiny thought experiments! if you start trying to deconstruct them you'll never get anywhere at all!

  • (disco) in reply to PWolff

    Which is usually lead. Not terribly healthy. :)

  • (disco) in reply to Rhywden

    /me idly wonders how many elements we consider stable could actually be radioactive isotopes with half lifes measured in the tens of billions of years (or more, a long enough half life that the radiation they produce would be lost in the normal background radiation)

  • (disco) in reply to Rhywden
    Rhywden:
    Which is usually lead
    Gold is better because greater specific mass. Lead is used for its lower price, mostly.

    Btw, ist't the reason they're making weapons out of uranium that it is even more dense? So the best shielding against radioactivity would be uranium.

  • (disco) in reply to accalia
    accalia:
    wonders how many elements we consider stable could actually be radioactive isotopes with half lifes measured in the tens of billions of years

    Yes, even single protons are suspected of being subject to decay.

  • (disco) in reply to accalia

    Erm, since half-life is a statistical value, you can determine pretty quick if something is stable or not.

    Don't forget that a single gram of matter contains about 10E22 to 10E23 nuclei (if we're looking at single atom matter and not molecules, of course)

  • (disco)

    The printer ad isn't a WTF: the "Black and White" obviously refers to the color of the printer itself, not its output.

  • (disco) in reply to PWolff
    PWolff:
    uranium that it is even more dense?

    it's also mildly radioactive (although the leftovers from enrichment are not a strong source of radioactivity by any stretch of the imagination) and has a nasty tendency to burn when impacted by a KE prokectile, producing some truely nasty byproducts

  • (disco) in reply to Rhywden
    Rhywden:
    Erm, since half-life is a statistical value, you can determine pretty quick if something is stable or not.

    well yes, but once you get into the regieme of a halflife of say.....1e50 years.... it would be harder to determine i imagine.

    and it was an idle thought anyway.

  • (disco) in reply to accalia

    If you're considering a limit of 10E50 years, then our universe would be considered unstable.

  • (disco) in reply to Rhywden
    Rhywden:
    you can determine pretty quick if something is stable or not.

    In the case of bismuth, it took several decades to demonstrate it is radioactive. Its half life is crazy long - more universe ages than the universe age is measured in human life spans.

    (Wikipedia says they found this out in 2003, but I'm rather sure I've known that in the late 1980s / early 1990s. Edit: I mean the fact that it is radioactive, and an estimate for a lower bound of its half life, not the actual value.)

  • (disco) in reply to Rhywden

    yeah. i imagine there comes a point where we should basically say "it's stable enough for any reaction/experiment that we're going to perform with it"

    that point's probably rahter before 1e10 years, let alone 1e50

  • (disco) in reply to accalia
    accalia:
    i imagine there comes a point where we should basically say "it's stable enough for any reaction/experiment that we're going to perform with it"
    See Wood's metal as low-melting alloy, potassium pertechnetate(VII) as anticorrosive
  • (disco) in reply to Steve_The_Cynic
    Steve_The_Cynic:
    No, the EU doesn't have its own citizens.
    http://ec.europa.eu/justice/citizen/ >Any person who holds the nationality of an EU country is automatically also an EU citizen. EU citizenship is additional to and does not replace national citizenship.
    Steve_The_Cynic:
    Its member states have citizens, and they have rights in other EU member states because they are citizens of their respective member states.
    Not quite, if we take the law literally. Yes, you cannot be EU citizen without being a member country's citizen, but EU citizen's rights aren't tied to member country's citizenship but to the EU citizenship. And there are cases where granting member country's citizenship doesn't give you EU citizenship.
    Steve_The_Cynic:
    And what, pray, is the EU's own territory, distinct from the territories of the member states?
    This makes as much sense as asking what territory USA has distinct from the member states. There are several EU law bills that use the term "territory of European Union" and not "territory of member states of European Union", and I'm pretty sure that "territory of European Union" is defined somewhere too. CBA to find the source - maybe next week I'll have some time to dig in further if you would really want.
  • (disco) in reply to Gaska
    Gaska:
    what territory USA has distinct from the member states.

    Well, there's the District of Columbia…

  • (disco) in reply to dkf

    Yeahm but when talking about USA territory, you don't mean just DC.

  • (disco) in reply to dkf

    The US has at least 10 other territories that aren't member states... including things like Puerto Rico and Guam.

    https://youtu.be/CesHr99ezWE

  • (disco) in reply to powerlord
    powerlord:
    The US has at least 10 other territories that aren't member states... including things like Puerto Rico and Guam.

    I was exhibiting a proof of the existence of non-state parts of the US, not enumerating them all.

  • (disco)
    Undocumented serious error (0x%04x)

    In what language does 0x%04x make any sense?

  • (disco) in reply to anotherusername

    TDWTFPL.

    <descriptive!

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