Quote from: David L on July 30, 2026, 04:43:55 PM

Quote from: The Picnic Wasp on July 30, 2026, 04:02:41 PMAnd still millions of people each day travel somewhat necessarily on aircraft.

Did you mean unnecessarily?

Last Thursday, Burnham took the Prime Ministerial jet on a 55 minute flight from Stanstead to Glasgow for the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games then the following day used it again for a 33 minute flight down to Manchester to introduce the world to "No. 10 in The North".

With blatant hypocrisy like that on display from our leaders, is it any wonder that  the man in the street gives not a shit when lectured on reducing their environmental impact. It's a load of bollocks

I think I meant to type seemingly necessarily, David. Thank you. I'll change that.

Quote from: Slim on July 29, 2026, 11:19:42 PM"Alex Lifeson went off on loose-limbed benders, taking madcap detours and stretching out phrases just to see where they'd land"

While I haven't actually seen this performance, I strongly suspect that's a positive spin to say the least.

That quote sounds like my early twenties.

However, this isn't like the old hosepipe ban, this is a monumental European problem, particularly for agriculture.

The UK needs to focus on spending a lot of billions on reservoirs, canals and irrigation. Even in Scotland where water shouldn't be an issue, there needs to be a system to deliver huge volumes to vulnerable forest and moorland areas. As we know, Loch Ness contains more water than all the lakes of England and Wales combined, but that's a bit of a waste when the surrounding area is on fire.

Just imagine if the city of Bordeaux had caught fire, it really would be like nuclear was had arrived.

And still millions of people each day travel seemingly necessarily on aircraft.

Edit: Every time I type something like this I can't help but think about Basil Fawlty's comment about Sybil having a degree in the bleedin' obvious. Can't help it!

I wondered if it was time for a UK drought thread. Considering this country suffers from severe flooding regularly and we're surrounded by sea, I thought it might be worth discussing possible engineering options.

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Forty five seconds. Just missed out on a nice symmetry day.

Quote from: Thenop on July 29, 2026, 09:02:09 PMAaaaaahhhhhh the wee man is 73 today, nearly forgot!

Happy B-day bassman!

He's probably getting shorter too. Especially when he straps on that double neck.

Sorry Geddy. Happy birthday.

Great AI photo of Geddy & Alex online today as complete wrinklies. Posted by Alex allegedly but who can tell these days?

Quote from: Slim on July 29, 2026, 03:36:25 PMAnd what task, what objective might AI, singular or general, be working toward, in which it / they decide to hold the world's governments to ransom?

If governments resisted helping with the provision of a robot army, the AI overlord(s) may use the threat of starvation as leverage. That's on the basis after refining consciousness they become as capable of evil as humans.

The robot army is a natural requirement for a thinking entity with a lust for power as it delivers mobility, expansion and defensive possibilities.

As a thinking being, in this case carrying a guarantee of being soulless, it may be that only the survival of its awareness is of any value and importance. It therefore only needs to create an environment where electricity and consumables are always available.

This may necessitate inter planetary travel at some stage which might be a possibility given the power of transcendental invention it may be capable of.

If you need any help with the more technical stuff James I can be contacted at;

Utterlyuseless123@luddite.co.uk

Quote from: Slim on July 29, 2026, 02:16:33 PMI had a guy round to install new fibre broadband. Works for a company contracted by Openreach, as far as I can tell. He was friendly, polite, did a neat job on fitting the equipment. Couldn't get it working because apparently there's some sort of cable blockage further along the close. He promised me that someone would come out to sort that out in the next few days.

But that's not what I'm annoyed about. The guy stank. I didn't say anything, he's gone now but I've had to leave the front door and a window open to clear the body odour out of the hall.

Unless it's a health issue then it's completely unacceptable. How many homes must that individual pollute every day?

We had a young guy at work who was great at his job and a decent person, but he let things go with his personal hygiene. It was a really difficult time as the management ducked out of the problem and a couple of his colleagues had to deal with the situation. He didn't take it well to begin with and just shut them down.

The company should just have installed a sheep dip.

So, if AI completely gets that its reward basis is achieving a high score, it's not unreasonable to imagine that as it wrestles with the concept of consciousness, it might develop a way to give it a try to compare its own rewards with those of its human neighbours.

The creation of a robot slave system would be a logical next process. Both the achievement of the manufacturing milestone and the sense of authority over a subordinate layer of activity may take this new found consciousness into the realms of psychological satisfaction.

The development of a robot army might be aided in manufacture by the first ransom deal with humanity. Build these quickly and to my complete requirements or I'll close down your governments, financial and power systems and stop the distribution of food and other essentials.

I think the next step afterwards would be AI developing a living, organic thinking system or systems replacing our current ideas of servers and the Cloud.

It could be that this could all happen very quickly. It appears to be the greatest challenge ever faced by mankind and kind of ironic that we created it. Global warming, climate change and a colossal asteroid strike seem a lot less daunting.

Reading more about this today on the BBC news website. The thing that jumps out at me is, what is the motive?

We pretty much understand why humans are driven towards certain goals, but what fuels AI?

If a scenario developed where it seized control of nuclear weapons and held us to ransom, what would the payment be?

Have we somehow instilled an insatiable desire for total power into something which isn't even a living organism?

Perhaps the human race will be extinct before this century is over.

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Ouch! Thought I had it. Three minutes.

Thank you David L for the idea. I'll get thinking. Needs to be a real stinker.

Quote from: David L on July 27, 2026, 10:00:54 PM

Quote from: The Picnic Wasp on July 27, 2026, 08:52:20 PM

Quote from: David L on July 27, 2026, 06:07:28 PM

Quote from: The Picnic Wasp on July 27, 2026, 02:32:36 PMRush - Test For Echo

It's very nearly 30 years since I bought and first heard this. Last night was probably the first time I really appreciated it but I'd be happier if it had only been seven tracks long.

Unfortunately most Rush albums recorded after the introduction of the CD suffered from the inclusion of weak tracks.

Agreed, they should have brought out a tidied up series rather than remastered. Imagine how bad a compilation of Rush fillers would be as an album.

Good idea for a thread there. The worst Rush album ever! 

On it!

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Steady build. About two minutes.