Notices by Zephod Beeblebrox (britishtechguru@techtoots.com)

@ATLeagle @lednaBM @bigheadtales @Runyan50 I'm in SC. It's an open carry state I don't actually see many guns in my day to day life. I think I've seen one person open carrying since open carry started for CWP holders couple of years ago. Since the state became open carry for all I've seen none. I've also not heard of any increases in shootings.

@lednaBM @bigheadtales @Runyan50

I lived in a gun-free country (Britain) and the shooting incidents that occurred were upon later investigations discovered to be down to clear inaction on the part of the police - as though they had been told not to intervene.

Safely stored weapons are useless weapons. They need to be ready to go. No gang of burglars is going to wait while you talk to the 911 operator.

@Runyan50 @lednaBM @bigheadtales How would you know who had them? That sounds like a recipe for civil war part 2.

@lednaBM @Runyan50 @bigheadtales

From what I saw, things were no different before, during or after.

@bigheadtales @lednaBM @Runyan50

Gun Crime Rate (excl. mass shootings, per 100,000):

1980s: 5.5-7.0
1993: Peak at 7.0
1995-2005: 4.0-5.0
2010: ~3.6
2020: 6.1 (pandemic spike)

General decline since 1990s, with recent increases.

It's not the guns - it's something else driving the spikes.

@lednaBM But he did exist and was crucified. Roman records that still exist prove this conclusively. The records say he was crucified for claiming to be the King of the Jews and the Jewish King objected.

As for walking on water, feeding people and curing the sick, Roman records are not clear.

@Floppa @lednaBM

I refer you to Tacitus, Suetonius, and Pliny the Younger—all Roman—refer to Jesus, as does Josephus, a Jewish historian.

Those geezers have nothing to do with the Christian cult.

@lednaBM @Floppa Don't forget the bible was not written til about 382AD and scripts that Pope Damasus I disagreed with were burned and not included. That pope was alone responsible for the dubious accuracy of the bible. Roman records are more dispassionate and accurate.

@lednaBM @Floppa

Paul would have written about it about 30 years after the crucifixion.
Flavius Josephus would have written about it 90 years later.

Both are within living memory so both are credible.

Tacitus and Pliny the Younger wrote about 112 years later so it is possible that they used records written at the time as their sources or spoke to elderly people who were actually there.

@lednaBM @Floppa

I'm not sure when the US civil war was but I happened upon a video of eldelry Confederate veterans doing the rebel yell on film that was shot in the 1930s so it is possible Pliny and Tacitus did speak to people who were there as young men then wrote as old men.

@Floppa @lednaBM

What we have is the best proof that he existed. As to what he did, we have Chinese whispers.

@Floppa @lednaBM

Why do you differ? What grounds? What part do you differ with?

I studied the Papacy from year 0 as part of my BA and love both expanding my knowledge and discussing the topic.

@lednaBM @Floppa

I want to make clear that I did separate the person Jesus from the Chinese whispers about his acts.

The so-called miracles etc sound rather far-fetched fiction. There is probably something in them (probably) but in the telling and retelling may well have been thoroughly embellished.

As for the man himself, we have references that go back far enough to give a good indication that the man Jesus probably did exist and probably was crucified and for the reasons given.

@lednaBM @Floppa

The lack of documentation of events is a problem. All we have is based on what information we can get from the oldest manuscripts. The problem there is exemplified in the book of Genesis where Adam and Eve created the human race. Now the problem is - who wrote it all down since they were illiterate. Writing and paper were likely not a priority for at least 1,000 years...

@mle @irene This is one of the things I found so offputting about tech back in the 1990s.

The amount of sexism was way worse than it is now. The other off-putting thing which is probably again not as bad now.

Despite graduating in computing, I never actually worked in computers.

@atomicpoet This will be interesting. I am very much in favour of Meta, Google, Apple, Microsoft being reformed in some way. I still want to make money from YouTube though, somehow. I'm a bit too old and ugly to squeeze into women's skimpies to make money on OnlyFans (not to mention the wrong gender)

@pare @javi

I'm prepared to acknowledge that technology has moved on tremendously from when I was studying computing on my OND, HNC and HND back in the 90s. (I ended up working in a non computer field) but a simple few minutes playing with ChatGPT told me all I need to know about how little intelligence there is in AI. Basically, it's not very far advanced from Eliza. It just has a bigger database.

@lednaBM The more you know, the more you realise you don't know but you've got a pretty good idea where to look to find answers.

@cstross @keyboards

Alan Sugar registered Amstrad as a trademark when he was a teen. It stood for Alan Michael Sugar Trading. He was a trader rather than an IT person and he saw the market blossom for home computers, jumped on the bandwagon and came out with decent enough stuff. The 3" drive however, was what really killed the CPM operating system. Nobody wanted an expensive non-standard floppy.

@lednaBM

The biggest problem with people being self-suffiient is that their energy "needs" have exploded over the last 30 years. Now, with the advent of those ridiicuous evs, it's even worse.