The reason they went with Tiscali is that BT actually disconnected them due to a deplorable, abhorrent and disrespectful customer service boondoggle. They then signed up for Tiscali because of a kick ass phone plan and also because it was cheaper than the garbage BT plan they were on. For £20 (includes line rental) they get up to 8mbit DSL (1.5-2mbit in practice) and unlimited calling (up to 1 hour per call, but you can hang up and call back) to a list of 50 countries, Canada included. Since that's where I live, she can call my landline or cell any time at no cost to her other than the monthly bill, which is comparatively nothing. Calling rates to the UK are pretty standard, but she spends more time on the phone to me than anyone locally.
My DSL alone (reliable ~6mbit down, ~550kbit up, no throttling/DNS injection/caps) is $42.95/mo + tax, never mind the phone line, voice mail, calling features, $15 unlimited long distance in Canada/USA only, etc.
This Tiscali phone plan has been great for our relationship because we can talk on the phone as if it were a local call. They would probably switch if Tiscali murdered a kitten every time someone visited Google or something, but in all honesty it works and it's cheap, and they're paying not me.
You're right, tipping is definitely not expected, but they usually don't go out of their way to deserve one either.
My philosophy about tipping, in any country, is that a server who truly deserves it shall receive. Attentiveness, politeness, attitude, knowledge (of the menu, wine pairings, etc) and friendliness (occasionally attractiveness... come on you've all done it!) all play into it. But, since the tip doesn't (usually) only go to the server, the quality and presentation of food and drinks plays a role in determining a tip.
North American servers tend to be friendly (often overly so) and eager, whereas European servers tend to be unfriendly, and sometimes even act like you're a inconvenience to them.
I'm not trying to stereotype, this is just what I've observed. Of course, I've seen a few exceptions, but most tend to fall into those categories.
The way it works at pretty much any busy restaurant I've been to (with the exception of really high end places) is that they always ask "Together or separate?"
I've noticed that after people place their orders, the server goes to a terminal and enters them all. It would be easier to enter them individually, as in Person 1 wanted X, Person 2 wanted Y... When it comes time to pay, if you say separate, they print off that table's pending bills and hand them out. If you want to cover someone else's meal, just take their bill and add it to yours in your head. No biggie. Most people have cell phones, all cell phones made in the last 5-8 years have a calculator function (if simple math isn't your thing). For table purchases, like bottles of wine or a shared appetizer, the server can split the cost across some or all bills. If you want one bill, its probably as simple as pushing a button to lump each bill for the table into one and print it off.
You can easily review your bill, which is always itemized, for any errors and have it corrected, but there is generally zero chance of fraud in this case because you have to review it and agree to it first.
As for paying at the table, it's been done before... can you say wireless debit/credit card terminals? The machines all ask whether or not you want to leave a tip, or you can just tell the server the number to enter beforehand.
By my understanding (didn't RTFA, only comments), IBM has patented the idea of some new device which encompasses the features of the restaurant's POS terminal, wireless debit/credit card machine and bill review into one sleek unit. Sure, it might save the step of printing the bill(s), but it sure isn't a novel idea by any stretch. To me, this kinda smells of the "... on the internet" types of patents in the sense that it's already being done, except they've added "at the table" to the end of it and called it a new idea. Doesn't seem right to me...
Well they might move to another provider, but still be in the same sinking boat.
Take my girlfriend's house as an example. They used to have BT DSL which topped out at a whopping 1.5mbps (on good days). They have since moved over to Tiscali for various reasons and see about the same speeds. Tiscali sells their particular package up to 8mbps, but they will likely never see speeds like that.
Apparently the problem is with the exchange, but may also be the last mile of copper, who knows? It's highly unlikely it will ever be fixed, so they just have to deal with it. It all works fine for them because they aren't power users (web, email, occasional iPlayer), but it would still be nice to get what you paid for. They could be paying for 24mbit but wouldn't likely see more than 2mbit. I'm sure her area isn't unique in the UK.
There is nothing wrong with Deluge. It's the best drop in replacement for uTorrent on Linux I've ever come across. Beats Transmission by a mile (and uTorrent in Wine). They have binaries for a few flavours of Linux, Windows and OS X.
The source code for all releases is available here.
I found it in Add/Remove in Ubuntu Hardy. It's got just as many, if not more configuration options as uTorrent, which all other clients I've tried lacked. It's very quick and I'm entirely pleased with it. Even comes with a web GUI if that's your thing.
There is another (easier?) way to test this. Go somewhere with not too much light pollution and look up at the stars on a clear night. Stare into an area with lots of stars to get a good idea of how many there are. Then look at the same area using your peripheral vision and you will notice that you can see more stars than you could before, which seem to disappear when you look right at them. Try it out with an area that doesn't seem to have any stars at all and you will probably see a few with your peripheral vision.
Yes the connector is exactly the same, but pinout is different. The connector is not patented by Apple, you can order them direct from Mouser (I forget the part number, but I have ordered one in the past). I found which one to order off of the Anything but iPod Forums. Besides, if they were patented by Apple, how would Sandisk be able to use it on their Sansa players without some exorbitant licensing fee? And you'd think for that price, iPod accessories would be compatible with Sansa players too.
DO NOT EVER plug iPod-branded/compatible anything into anything except an iPod. Worst case scenario, it will fry the other thing beyond repair.
Sandisk had/has a line of products specifically for Sansa players called "Made for Sansa" or something similar. I know that Futureshop (Canada) carries a small selection of stuff, but you can generally find extra cables or whatever on Amazon for next to nothing.
They are great players, especially with Rockbox (if you're lucky enough to have a v1 (doesn't work on v2's yet).
I know that's a scary topic for lots of Americans, but good gov't regulations are largely responsible for Canadian banks not needing $700 billion + $250 billion bailout packages...
Just imagine if business was ENTIRELY unregulated. What would that be like? I know, monopolies would emerge! Microsoft, Amazon and Richard Branson would probably own everything, and would be in constant bidding wars to buy each other out. Steve Jobs would likely be begging outside the new flagship Windows Store (formerly known as the Apple Store) in San Francisco, and pleading with people not to buy Microsoft Windows X and brand new WindowsBook Pros.
Some food for thought...
Now, while I agree that THIS particular proposition could be worded better to remove ties to specific technological methods (encryption) and focus more on more general methods like the UK Data Protection Act, which was mentioned earlier. This would make the law able to last longer without requiring rewrites every so often to keep up to date. The UK law is very well written in this regard. See this post for more details about the UK law.
All the time! In Canada we have a healthy immigration system that heavily rewards business/education/financial success and refugees & their family members.
Some individual provinces even have their own vetting system for immigrants wishing to establish themselves in that particular province. Manitoba's Provincial Nominee Program is the largest and most successful program in the country (and the only one I know anything about). It doesn't guarantee you a visa, but they do their homework, background checks etc, and also a labour market study to determine whether your skills are needed here, or whether you'd be stealing a job from a Manitoban. If they feel you're needed, they issue a recommendation to the Federal dept of immigration, which usually rubber stamps you, unless of course they find something which rejects you, like a criminal record or an unticked box on one of the thousands of forms.
I have been helping my friend get his application together for the last couple months and he should have it sent in by Christmas. It will take 6-9 months to get a response though. Don't expect to apply and move in the next 2 weeks, more like 1-2 years.
A Provincial Nominee Program isn't the only route, you can apply directly to the feds as well, but I know nothing about that route. The Feds announced recently that they were going to increase the immigration quota, so better chances.
That said, Aussies are very welcome here. I hear Aussie accents all the time here in Winnipeg. If you're SERIOUS about it, do it. You won't regret it. Canada is seriously poised to take a huge leap upward in international power rankings... that is if the gov't manages this crisis properly and we keep our heads above water while everyone else is drowning. We're a net exporter of valuable resources (wood, oil, food, minerals), so we're better off than other countries who are net importers. We've also currently got the best banking system in the world. Cost of living is low... lots of really good reasons to move here. Best place to live right now and for a long time to come.
If you're worried about the net neutrality issue, I'm positive that's gonna be on the back burner for the foreseeable future while parliament sorts through this much more important "economy" business.
A neat bonus is that you'd finally get snow on Christmas!
Yeah I realized that about 5 minutes after I posted that... I only thought of people living in Britain as British citizens, but as it turns out, Americans at the time were as well.
But still, my point about beheading the King still stands as valid. When you piss off your subjects/constituents/citizens enough, they can and will kick down your door and kill/arrest/exile you for it, as history has clearly shown us in many cases.
Wow I guess I didn't think to look south. Americans were their citizens and the Brits lost the war of independence. Doh! Now I feel dumb, but it is rather late.
I guess if the current British population did anything, it would turn out much like V for Vendetta; most people aren't willing, or they're too scared, or too lazy, or even too convinced that it's all there for their protection to do anything about it. They need a LOT of change for the worse, and someone to show them the light to bring out the rebel in each of them. Or maybe it would turn out like Children of Men, or 28 Days Later, or even Shaun of the Dead! As long as it's not like the "greater good" in Hot Fuzz, but you know that's just what might start happening...
I hope you're not thinking of the French Revolution which began in 1789. It all started with the storming of the Bastille, and featured the arrests of both King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette. They were subsequently beheaded in 1793 and the Revolution ended with Napoleon Bonaparte seizing power and calling himself Emperor. And we all know how that turned out...
What I think you meant to get at was Charles I of England who was executed a little earlier in 1649. He got to that point by sufficiently pissing off Parliament by imposing taxes without their consent, among other things, such as being at war against them (Royalists vs New Model Army. This of course led to the Interregnum period (aka the republican experiment) under Oliver Cromwell. In the end, Charles' exiled son, Charles II, came back from exile and resumed the throne.
Thus concludes my brief and not so detailed lesson on 17th century British & 18th century French history.
I don't know about yours, but when I plug in my Sansa e270 (with a very recent version of Rockbox installed), here's what it does.
Disclaimer: It has to be off before you do this or it freezes up after a few seconds and you have to hold the power button for 15 seconds shut it off.
Plug in the USB cable between the computer & the Sansa. It will turn itself on, and *automagically* detect that it's on external power and boot the stock firmware, beginning the charging and allowing data transfers. Unplug it, and it *automagically* reboots right into Rockbox! No effort required!
You're right in that they still haven't solved the charging or data transfer issues in Rockbox, yet, but they have more or less solved the problem in a reasonable way. Want to charge or transfer songs? Use the stock firmware. For everything else, there's Rockbox.
Oh, and by the way, the process to load up the stock firmware without external power is very simple (unlike what you've described). When it's off, hold the left arrow and press the power button. Keep holding the left arrow until the bootloader screen comes on (you'll know what I mean when you see it). It doesn't take 30 seconds, only a couple more seconds to load it up, that's all.
I, for one, am very satisfied with my Sansa and I'd take it over an iPod any day. I could care less about being trendy with white headphones and all that shit. At least it's easy to change the battery on a Sansa, and you don't need special tools to do it either; a small Phillips screwdriver does the trick.
CNN.com doesn't work for me unless I tell NoScript to NOT allow JS on it. If I enable JS on their site, it doesn't show any text or pictures or anything, just the header. It has been like this for a couple versions of Firefox now.
Microsoft Streets & Trips comes with, or at least came with (not sure) this type of locating feature. I always uninstalled it though. It's been done before at any rate...
I agree with everyone else in that it should be an optional addon, period.
Haha, yeah that's exactly what I'm talking about. Forgive me for assuming everyone knows what they are, because around here, everybody does. Though I have to admit, not all Canadians even know what those plugs hanging out of the front of our cars are for. I knew a guy from Vancouver Island who thought people plugged their cars in to charge the battery or something.
I currently have a 50W battery blanket and a block heater. I will be retrofitting my mother's VW Jetta TDI with a 1000W coolant heater & 50W battery blanket in the coming weeks before the snow starts falling. Added a new battery this summer which should definitely help. Those damned things don't have frost plugs for normal block heaters! And trust me, if you DON'T plug them in when it's -40, they don't start no matter how hard you try. Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt... even had a fight over it.
At ~$0.06/kWh here in Friendly Manitoba we can afford these things.
If you move somewhere cold, you learn real fast what they're for.
I fully agree with you, but I do have this anecdote which might lend SOME credibility to the proponents of this feature.
My friend and I were studying in Germany a couple years ago. We were visiting his relatives and his aunt let us take the car out with her son and his friend (who weren't old enough to drive). It was late evening and we decided we were going to go bowling and grab some beer on the way back. On the way back, we had to go on an Autobahn and my friend was driving the car. This was his first time driving on one and he decided to go for broke. The Skoda Fabia got up to about 190km/h by the time we reached our exit, so he turned off. He was so pumped up, encouraged by his cousin, he maintained 100km/h or more after coming off the exit. He'd never driven this road before and it went through a small village. The road went up over a hill and then quite steeply down and ended in a T intersection at the bottom. No one knew this and we only realized at the top of the hill. I don't know how he made the right turn, but it was very close, there was a car coming from the right, and lots of posts on the right, and a house directly in front of us. Lots of skidding, and I think it would be considered a power slide around the corner if it happened in a video game... all in the middle of winter too.
We didn't die and the car was fine, but I'm sure it was a lesson he learned real fast. He hadn't driven in a long time so I guess he had to get it out of his system or something. No excuse would really make up for it though. Now, if he wasn't going for broke on the Autobahn, he wouldn't have been so pumped up and likely would have driven with a much cooler head, avoiding all this crap. 128km/h is just shy of the speed limit on most Autobahns in Germany anyway, where limits apply of course.
Yes I know that this would be a speeding violation in most places in the US (except Montana during the day from what I hear), but he was fully within the law to drive that fast. If some kids in the States are flying down the Freeway at 100mph, take an exit pumped up on adrenaline and try to do something on regular roads at too high a speed, then maybe this will be of some use. Just being able to keep up to most traffic isn't much of a thrill.
How much snow do you need to get stuck? I've had to back through a 1' snow drift across the driveway on more winter mornings than I care to mention. I've never gotten stuck in them, and I drive a VW Golf with all-season tires, no traction control. That said, I have gotten badly stuck before, and either a shovel, lots of pushing, or getting pulled out by another vehicle was required. No amount of tire spinning or traction control would have helped in any situation. In minor "stuck" situations, more often than not rocking back and forth is the easiest way out if just trying to drive straight out fails. You need to be able to spin your tires though or you don't get the build up of momentum required.
When it's -40 (F or C, same difference) are you the first one to jump out and help push/dig? What if you're alone? You'd call a tow truck? Think again! There's frequently an 8+ hour waiting list when it's that cold because every single idiot who forgot to plug in their car calls roadside assistance (CAA here) because they can't start their cars.
There is a Saskatchewan company called Mitchell's Gourmet Foods (began in 1940) who sell a line of meats under the name "Olympic Fine Meats". Mitchell's are now owned by Maple Leaf Foods. Let's assume that "Olympic Fine Meats" has already been trademarked, as all brand names are.
Now that it's illegal to use Olympic in any trade or business name, does that invalidate existing trademarks containing the now illegal words/phrases?
The best way to prevent rogue countries from developing a nuclear bomb would have been to never invent it. The best way to keep them from stealing one would be to not own one. Yet, we still spend billions each year, learning about newer more effective ways to kill people, ultimately dooming ourselves to one day facing enemies with the same deadly and devasting arsenal.
So, if the Manhattan Project didn't yield a working nuke, the Germans wouldn't have come up with one eventually on their own? They were close... not quite there, but close. We (the Allies) kept stealing their scientists so they were falling behind.
In either case, it would have eventually been figured out, whether or not the US was the first to do it. Also, if two warring nations have nukes, they tend to be very cautious about using them, because of the whole mutually assured destruction thing. Hopefully we never see it happen.
Further, do you think that if Werner von Braun wasn't brought in for his rocket surgery skills, would NASA not exist? Would the moon still be unexplored? Somehow I don't think so, but maybe the US wouldn't have made it to the moon by the end of the 60's, but would have eventually gotten there. Maybe the Soviets would have gotten there first, who knows? Ultimately the knowledge will come from somewhere. "Rogue nations" have resources, as well as sufficient motivation to educate their brightest minds to research these things they perceive as needs, usually at the cost of everything else.
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The reason they went with Tiscali is that BT actually disconnected them due to a deplorable, abhorrent and disrespectful customer service boondoggle. They then signed up for Tiscali because of a kick ass phone plan and also because it was cheaper than the garbage BT plan they were on. For £20 (includes line rental) they get up to 8mbit DSL (1.5-2mbit in practice) and unlimited calling (up to 1 hour per call, but you can hang up and call back) to a list of 50 countries, Canada included. Since that's where I live, she can call my landline or cell any time at no cost to her other than the monthly bill, which is comparatively nothing. Calling rates to the UK are pretty standard, but she spends more time on the phone to me than anyone locally.
My DSL alone (reliable ~6mbit down, ~550kbit up, no throttling/DNS injection/caps) is $42.95/mo + tax, never mind the phone line, voice mail, calling features, $15 unlimited long distance in Canada/USA only, etc.
This Tiscali phone plan has been great for our relationship because we can talk on the phone as if it were a local call. They would probably switch if Tiscali murdered a kitten every time someone visited Google or something, but in all honesty it works and it's cheap, and they're paying not me.
You're right, tipping is definitely not expected, but they usually don't go out of their way to deserve one either.
My philosophy about tipping, in any country, is that a server who truly deserves it shall receive. Attentiveness, politeness, attitude, knowledge (of the menu, wine pairings, etc) and friendliness (occasionally attractiveness... come on you've all done it!) all play into it. But, since the tip doesn't (usually) only go to the server, the quality and presentation of food and drinks plays a role in determining a tip.
North American servers tend to be friendly (often overly so) and eager, whereas European servers tend to be unfriendly, and sometimes even act like you're a inconvenience to them.
I'm not trying to stereotype, this is just what I've observed. Of course, I've seen a few exceptions, but most tend to fall into those categories.
Since we're on the topic of Germans, sorry to be the German grammar Nazi (again), but your sig...
You can't say "nicht ein" in German, it's always shortened to "kein" + the appropriate adjective ending.
Das ist keine Unterschrift.
Sorry, I couldn't let that one go!
The way it works at pretty much any busy restaurant I've been to (with the exception of really high end places) is that they always ask "Together or separate?"
I've noticed that after people place their orders, the server goes to a terminal and enters them all. It would be easier to enter them individually, as in Person 1 wanted X, Person 2 wanted Y... When it comes time to pay, if you say separate, they print off that table's pending bills and hand them out. If you want to cover someone else's meal, just take their bill and add it to yours in your head. No biggie. Most people have cell phones, all cell phones made in the last 5-8 years have a calculator function (if simple math isn't your thing). For table purchases, like bottles of wine or a shared appetizer, the server can split the cost across some or all bills. If you want one bill, its probably as simple as pushing a button to lump each bill for the table into one and print it off.
You can easily review your bill, which is always itemized, for any errors and have it corrected, but there is generally zero chance of fraud in this case because you have to review it and agree to it first.
As for paying at the table, it's been done before... can you say wireless debit/credit card terminals? The machines all ask whether or not you want to leave a tip, or you can just tell the server the number to enter beforehand.
By my understanding (didn't RTFA, only comments), IBM has patented the idea of some new device which encompasses the features of the restaurant's POS terminal, wireless debit/credit card machine and bill review into one sleek unit. Sure, it might save the step of printing the bill(s), but it sure isn't a novel idea by any stretch. To me, this kinda smells of the "... on the internet" types of patents in the sense that it's already being done, except they've added "at the table" to the end of it and called it a new idea. Doesn't seem right to me...
Well they might move to another provider, but still be in the same sinking boat.
Take my girlfriend's house as an example. They used to have BT DSL which topped out at a whopping 1.5mbps (on good days). They have since moved over to Tiscali for various reasons and see about the same speeds. Tiscali sells their particular package up to 8mbps, but they will likely never see speeds like that.
Apparently the problem is with the exchange, but may also be the last mile of copper, who knows? It's highly unlikely it will ever be fixed, so they just have to deal with it. It all works fine for them because they aren't power users (web, email, occasional iPlayer), but it would still be nice to get what you paid for. They could be paying for 24mbit but wouldn't likely see more than 2mbit. I'm sure her area isn't unique in the UK.
There is nothing wrong with Deluge. It's the best drop in replacement for uTorrent on Linux I've ever come across. Beats Transmission by a mile (and uTorrent in Wine). They have binaries for a few flavours of Linux, Windows and OS X.
The source code for all releases is available here.
I found it in Add/Remove in Ubuntu Hardy. It's got just as many, if not more configuration options as uTorrent, which all other clients I've tried lacked. It's very quick and I'm entirely pleased with it. Even comes with a web GUI if that's your thing.
There is another (easier?) way to test this. Go somewhere with not too much light pollution and look up at the stars on a clear night. Stare into an area with lots of stars to get a good idea of how many there are. Then look at the same area using your peripheral vision and you will notice that you can see more stars than you could before, which seem to disappear when you look right at them. Try it out with an area that doesn't seem to have any stars at all and you will probably see a few with your peripheral vision.
Yes the connector is exactly the same, but pinout is different. The connector is not patented by Apple, you can order them direct from Mouser (I forget the part number, but I have ordered one in the past). I found which one to order off of the Anything but iPod Forums. Besides, if they were patented by Apple, how would Sandisk be able to use it on their Sansa players without some exorbitant licensing fee? And you'd think for that price, iPod accessories would be compatible with Sansa players too.
DO NOT EVER plug iPod-branded/compatible anything into anything except an iPod. Worst case scenario, it will fry the other thing beyond repair.
Sandisk had/has a line of products specifically for Sansa players called "Made for Sansa" or something similar. I know that Futureshop (Canada) carries a small selection of stuff, but you can generally find extra cables or whatever on Amazon for next to nothing.
They are great players, especially with Rockbox (if you're lucky enough to have a v1 (doesn't work on v2's yet).
I know that's a scary topic for lots of Americans, but good gov't regulations are largely responsible for Canadian banks not needing $700 billion + $250 billion bailout packages...
Just imagine if business was ENTIRELY unregulated. What would that be like? I know, monopolies would emerge! Microsoft, Amazon and Richard Branson would probably own everything, and would be in constant bidding wars to buy each other out. Steve Jobs would likely be begging outside the new flagship Windows Store (formerly known as the Apple Store) in San Francisco, and pleading with people not to buy Microsoft Windows X and brand new WindowsBook Pros.
Some food for thought...
Now, while I agree that THIS particular proposition could be worded better to remove ties to specific technological methods (encryption) and focus more on more general methods like the UK Data Protection Act, which was mentioned earlier. This would make the law able to last longer without requiring rewrites every so often to keep up to date. The UK law is very well written in this regard. See this post for more details about the UK law.
All the time! In Canada we have a healthy immigration system that heavily rewards business/education/financial success and refugees & their family members.
Some individual provinces even have their own vetting system for immigrants wishing to establish themselves in that particular province. Manitoba's Provincial Nominee Program is the largest and most successful program in the country (and the only one I know anything about). It doesn't guarantee you a visa, but they do their homework, background checks etc, and also a labour market study to determine whether your skills are needed here, or whether you'd be stealing a job from a Manitoban. If they feel you're needed, they issue a recommendation to the Federal dept of immigration, which usually rubber stamps you, unless of course they find something which rejects you, like a criminal record or an unticked box on one of the thousands of forms.
I have been helping my friend get his application together for the last couple months and he should have it sent in by Christmas. It will take 6-9 months to get a response though. Don't expect to apply and move in the next 2 weeks, more like 1-2 years.
A Provincial Nominee Program isn't the only route, you can apply directly to the feds as well, but I know nothing about that route. The Feds announced recently that they were going to increase the immigration quota, so better chances.
That said, Aussies are very welcome here. I hear Aussie accents all the time here in Winnipeg. If you're SERIOUS about it, do it. You won't regret it. Canada is seriously poised to take a huge leap upward in international power rankings... that is if the gov't manages this crisis properly and we keep our heads above water while everyone else is drowning. We're a net exporter of valuable resources (wood, oil, food, minerals), so we're better off than other countries who are net importers. We've also currently got the best banking system in the world. Cost of living is low... lots of really good reasons to move here. Best place to live right now and for a long time to come.
If you're worried about the net neutrality issue, I'm positive that's gonna be on the back burner for the foreseeable future while parliament sorts through this much more important "economy" business.
A neat bonus is that you'd finally get snow on Christmas!
I believe you meant to say:
Sieg Heil zum neuen Fuehrer...
/GermanGrammarNazi
Yeah I realized that about 5 minutes after I posted that... I only thought of people living in Britain as British citizens, but as it turns out, Americans at the time were as well.
But still, my point about beheading the King still stands as valid. When you piss off your subjects/constituents/citizens enough, they can and will kick down your door and kill/arrest/exile you for it, as history has clearly shown us in many cases.
Yeah, but there's me.
Wow I guess I didn't think to look south. Americans were their citizens and the Brits lost the war of independence. Doh! Now I feel dumb, but it is rather late.
I guess if the current British population did anything, it would turn out much like V for Vendetta; most people aren't willing, or they're too scared, or too lazy, or even too convinced that it's all there for their protection to do anything about it. They need a LOT of change for the worse, and someone to show them the light to bring out the rebel in each of them. Or maybe it would turn out like Children of Men, or 28 Days Later, or even Shaun of the Dead! As long as it's not like the "greater good" in Hot Fuzz, but you know that's just what might start happening...
I hope you're not thinking of the French Revolution which began in 1789. It all started with the storming of the Bastille, and featured the arrests of both King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette. They were subsequently beheaded in 1793 and the Revolution ended with Napoleon Bonaparte seizing power and calling himself Emperor. And we all know how that turned out...
What I think you meant to get at was Charles I of England who was executed a little earlier in 1649. He got to that point by sufficiently pissing off Parliament by imposing taxes without their consent, among other things, such as being at war against them (Royalists vs New Model Army. This of course led to the Interregnum period (aka the republican experiment) under Oliver Cromwell. In the end, Charles' exiled son, Charles II, came back from exile and resumed the throne.
Thus concludes my brief and not so detailed lesson on 17th century British & 18th century French history.
Yes and I wish I could have them back.
Uhh... check out his sig:
Once you've had Mac, you can't go back!
I highly doubt it.
I don't know about yours, but when I plug in my Sansa e270 (with a very recent version of Rockbox installed), here's what it does.
Disclaimer: It has to be off before you do this or it freezes up after a few seconds and you have to hold the power button for 15 seconds shut it off.
Plug in the USB cable between the computer & the Sansa. It will turn itself on, and *automagically* detect that it's on external power and boot the stock firmware, beginning the charging and allowing data transfers. Unplug it, and it *automagically* reboots right into Rockbox! No effort required!
You're right in that they still haven't solved the charging or data transfer issues in Rockbox, yet, but they have more or less solved the problem in a reasonable way. Want to charge or transfer songs? Use the stock firmware. For everything else, there's Rockbox.
Oh, and by the way, the process to load up the stock firmware without external power is very simple (unlike what you've described). When it's off, hold the left arrow and press the power button. Keep holding the left arrow until the bootloader screen comes on (you'll know what I mean when you see it). It doesn't take 30 seconds, only a couple more seconds to load it up, that's all.
I, for one, am very satisfied with my Sansa and I'd take it over an iPod any day. I could care less about being trendy with white headphones and all that shit. At least it's easy to change the battery on a Sansa, and you don't need special tools to do it either; a small Phillips screwdriver does the trick.
CNN.com doesn't work for me unless I tell NoScript to NOT allow JS on it. If I enable JS on their site, it doesn't show any text or pictures or anything, just the header. It has been like this for a couple versions of Firefox now.
Microsoft Streets & Trips comes with, or at least came with (not sure) this type of locating feature. I always uninstalled it though. It's been done before at any rate...
I agree with everyone else in that it should be an optional addon, period.
Haha, yeah that's exactly what I'm talking about. Forgive me for assuming everyone knows what they are, because around here, everybody does. Though I have to admit, not all Canadians even know what those plugs hanging out of the front of our cars are for. I knew a guy from Vancouver Island who thought people plugged their cars in to charge the battery or something.
I currently have a 50W battery blanket and a block heater. I will be retrofitting my mother's VW Jetta TDI with a 1000W coolant heater & 50W battery blanket in the coming weeks before the snow starts falling. Added a new battery this summer which should definitely help. Those damned things don't have frost plugs for normal block heaters! And trust me, if you DON'T plug them in when it's -40, they don't start no matter how hard you try. Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt... even had a fight over it.
At ~$0.06/kWh here in Friendly Manitoba we can afford these things.
If you move somewhere cold, you learn real fast what they're for.
I fully agree with you, but I do have this anecdote which might lend SOME credibility to the proponents of this feature.
My friend and I were studying in Germany a couple years ago. We were visiting his relatives and his aunt let us take the car out with her son and his friend (who weren't old enough to drive). It was late evening and we decided we were going to go bowling and grab some beer on the way back. On the way back, we had to go on an Autobahn and my friend was driving the car. This was his first time driving on one and he decided to go for broke. The Skoda Fabia got up to about 190km/h by the time we reached our exit, so he turned off. He was so pumped up, encouraged by his cousin, he maintained 100km/h or more after coming off the exit. He'd never driven this road before and it went through a small village. The road went up over a hill and then quite steeply down and ended in a T intersection at the bottom. No one knew this and we only realized at the top of the hill. I don't know how he made the right turn, but it was very close, there was a car coming from the right, and lots of posts on the right, and a house directly in front of us. Lots of skidding, and I think it would be considered a power slide around the corner if it happened in a video game... all in the middle of winter too.
We didn't die and the car was fine, but I'm sure it was a lesson he learned real fast. He hadn't driven in a long time so I guess he had to get it out of his system or something. No excuse would really make up for it though. Now, if he wasn't going for broke on the Autobahn, he wouldn't have been so pumped up and likely would have driven with a much cooler head, avoiding all this crap. 128km/h is just shy of the speed limit on most Autobahns in Germany anyway, where limits apply of course.
Yes I know that this would be a speeding violation in most places in the US (except Montana during the day from what I hear), but he was fully within the law to drive that fast. If some kids in the States are flying down the Freeway at 100mph, take an exit pumped up on adrenaline and try to do something on regular roads at too high a speed, then maybe this will be of some use. Just being able to keep up to most traffic isn't much of a thrill.
Sounds like you've never been stuck in the snow!
How much snow do you need to get stuck? I've had to back through a 1' snow drift across the driveway on more winter mornings than I care to mention. I've never gotten stuck in them, and I drive a VW Golf with all-season tires, no traction control. That said, I have gotten badly stuck before, and either a shovel, lots of pushing, or getting pulled out by another vehicle was required. No amount of tire spinning or traction control would have helped in any situation. In minor "stuck" situations, more often than not rocking back and forth is the easiest way out if just trying to drive straight out fails. You need to be able to spin your tires though or you don't get the build up of momentum required.
When it's -40 (F or C, same difference) are you the first one to jump out and help push/dig? What if you're alone? You'd call a tow truck? Think again! There's frequently an 8+ hour waiting list when it's that cold because every single idiot who forgot to plug in their car calls roadside assistance (CAA here) because they can't start their cars.
Ahh! Life on the prairies...
There is a Saskatchewan company called Mitchell's Gourmet Foods (began in 1940) who sell a line of meats under the name "Olympic Fine Meats". Mitchell's are now owned by Maple Leaf Foods. Let's assume that "Olympic Fine Meats" has already been trademarked, as all brand names are.
Now that it's illegal to use Olympic in any trade or business name, does that invalidate existing trademarks containing the now illegal words/phrases?
The best way to prevent rogue countries from developing a nuclear bomb would have been to never invent it. The best way to keep them from stealing one would be to not own one. Yet, we still spend billions each year, learning about newer more effective ways to kill people, ultimately dooming ourselves to one day facing enemies with the same deadly and devasting arsenal.
So, if the Manhattan Project didn't yield a working nuke, the Germans wouldn't have come up with one eventually on their own? They were close... not quite there, but close. We (the Allies) kept stealing their scientists so they were falling behind.
In either case, it would have eventually been figured out, whether or not the US was the first to do it. Also, if two warring nations have nukes, they tend to be very cautious about using them, because of the whole mutually assured destruction thing. Hopefully we never see it happen.
Further, do you think that if Werner von Braun wasn't brought in for his rocket surgery skills, would NASA not exist? Would the moon still be unexplored? Somehow I don't think so, but maybe the US wouldn't have made it to the moon by the end of the 60's, but would have eventually gotten there. Maybe the Soviets would have gotten there first, who knows? Ultimately the knowledge will come from somewhere. "Rogue nations" have resources, as well as sufficient motivation to educate their brightest minds to research these things they perceive as needs, usually at the cost of everything else.