I have the grace of a gazelle.

...our consciousness is little more than a rollercoaster ride and free will is an illusion.

I don't like teleporters. I subscribe to the theory that teleporters kill you, from the moment you use one you will experience nothing ever again, but nobody else will be able to tell.

I appear to have missed, well, lots of posts. I'm not entirely sure how.

It's one of the ways they might work, for sure - scan you down to your atoms, break you down into mulch, and build a new you somewhere else.

The important thing to consider here is that what's stopping it not destroying the original, or building fifty copies? Serious restrictions and rules, I guess, but hackers will get in there eventually.

It's a good philosophical question.

What if that happens every time you fall asleep. If every time your stream of consciousness is broken it ends and then another one takes over just with the same memories. When you go to sleep you actually die.

In the China Mieville book, 'Kraken', there's a character who has the ability to teleport a la Star Trek, and he is permanently haunted by the ghosts of his dead past selves, as every time he transports it does indeed kill him and build a new 'him'.

In the same body?

I appear to have missed, well, lots of posts. I'm not entirely sure how.

Yeah, what is individual consciousness except the experience of having had an unbroken stream of experiences, of always having been you. What if every time the activity within the bits of the brain that cause consciousness stops and then starts up again it's like rebooting a computer the actual "you" stopped when you nodded off, then some other identical cunt wakes up the next day with all the same memories utterly convinced that all that stuff happened to them.

Yeah, what is individual consciousness except the experience of having had an unbroken stream of experiences, of always having been you. What if every time the activity within the bits of the brain that cause consciousness stops and then starts up again it's like rebooting a computer the actual "you" stopped when you nodded off, then some other identical cunt wakes up the next day with all the same memories utterly convinced that all that stuff happened to them.

http://www.melaniephillips.com/cruel-ignorant-campaign/

Melanie Phillips on the, frankly, fucking awful Gard case. Worth a read.

http://www.melaniephillips.com/cruel-ignorant-campaign/

Melanie Phillips on the, frankly, fucking awful Gard case. Worth a read.

Freedom of movement to end in March 2019.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/40734504

Melanie.Phillips.

I do like China Mieville, but haven't read any of his stuff for a while - will give that a go!

It's only a very minor character, from what I remember.

His best book remains Embassytown, with the Perdido Street Station - Scar - Iron Council 'trilogy' the best after that (IMHO of course).

Trump must be an atrocious judge of character.

So, you know, and these are like countries, you know, fairly large, like 300 million people. You know, a lot of people say — they say, well, but the United States is large. And then you call places like Malaysia, Indonesia, and you say, you know, how many people do you have? And it’s pretty amazing how many people they have.

I can say that we’re going to be very involved with the U.K. I mean, you don’t hear the word Britain anymore. It’s very interesting. It’s like, nope.

One little thing, what would they do with the British Open if they [Scotland] ever got out? They’d no longer have the British Open.

With Mr Trump, sometimes you get the feeling he's been given a 'Big Bumper Book of Facts' for Christmas and is insistent on sharing his new-found knowledge with every adult he comes across.

You been hearing the word unmasking, a word you’ve probably never heard before, so you never know what’s out there and I didn’t tape and I don’t have any tape and I didn’t tape

Superb. Whenever I learn a new word I try to use it three times that day. The unmasking of Jim Carey was the 'Truman Show'.

And today's annoying clickbait article on the Guardian website is the one where the journalist has to travel by train at short notice and discovers it's a bit pricey.

The A1 has its own landmarks – the old Little Chefs that are now sex shops and, erm, the roundabouts – but oddly, it doesn’t compare.

One of the joys of driving in the southern US is that the sex shops tend to be right next to churches, suggesting a natural order to one's visits.

WEST Yorkshire Police officers had to resort to using force more than 7,500 times over a three month period this year.

Data released for the first time shows tasers were used 62 times, an irritant spray was used 132 times and police dogs bit offenders four times in the period April 1 to June 30.

Spit guards were used on 14 occasions, ground restraint was used on 216 occasions and there were 1,092 occasions of non-compliant handcuffing.

Compliant handcuffing amounted to 2,147 incidents.
A shield was used once and a baton ten times.

Tactical (verbal) communication was used on 2,554 occasions to resolve an incident.

In all, force was used by officers 7,680 times in order to carry out their duties and there were 218 occasions when police staff were physically injured.

Does Tactical Verbal Communication mean "talking"?

Does Tactical Verbal Communication mean "talking"?

Does Tactical Verbal Communication mean "talking"?

police dog/taser/gun

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/aug/09/prime-minister-corbyn-very-british-coup-establishment-backlash

Oh, Owen.

Seems pretty reasonable if you read the whole thing.