I dunno, its home made, Heath Robinson, scrapheap challenge and scary as hell...
... but strangely a lot more plausible then Air Wolf and Blue Thunder.
(I'm informed by a pilot colleague that without squash plates and cyclic controls - whatever the hell they are - its not a true helicopter and hence is uncontrollable. Still we all agreed it was better then we could do.)
I like the cost. "nominal one-off payment of 10,000 euros."
Nominal for large multinational corporations you means. How many open source projects will stump that?
Sure MS paid the fine, but have they succeeded in making things hard for the little developers?
Besides, fining MS is like siphoning your water from the Niagara falls - sure you get wet but you don't make a dent. I have held the view for a long time that fines for companies should be based on a percentage setting, that way firms of all sizes are hit more equally. Or maybe a formula based on size, income and percentage - there must be an improvement on current methods of setting penalties.
..any open source project "team" they buy can will be pointless as if there is enough support the last version will be forked by the community if there is a perceived need. I mean, call me simplistic but isn't that the main strength of open sourced projects? If you don't like it then fork it, if there is enough support then it will work. Survival of the fittest and all that...
....or when I hear about a politician actually doing something good and sensible the very first cynical thought I have is "what does he/she get out of it?"
If I wanted to browse the Internet in a mobile fashion I would be much more interested in a Asus Eee PC format that could browse cellular networks, anybody know if it can? They must be thinking of adding something other then wireless...
more power, more traditional format, proper keyboard/mouse, ok its bigger but its much smaller then a real laptop - and you can work on office documents and actually do something approaching tasks on it. now thats a toy I'm really thinking of getting....
but, is it on most browsers in the world? yes, and the plug-in is free, and thats good.
thats what I mean by ubiquitous. you wave a magic wand to remove flash and many/most of the big name websites (youtube, facebook to name two) have problems. as of June 2007 Flash was on 99.3% of desktops (source: wiki) - if that is not ubiquitous then I will eat my metaphorical hat along with a sizable portion of humble pie.
I did not claim it was the best solution, or even a good one - but it is a solution that certainly has coverage and is ported across most platforms. that is why it is a big step forward from the BBC, and I applaud them for it.
when there is a similar GPL system installed on >95% of browsers world wide you can be sure I will be celebrating, but for the time being I make do with what I have.
Unlike newspapers whose only income is from sales/advertising and have a desperate need to shunt embarrassing scoops and distorted news to sell copies. I think the newspapers have a hell of a lot to answer to.
3/4 of their income comes from the License fee, it pays for material, presenters, infrastructure, shows - without it there would be no BBC. Morons whine and bitch about it, but don't seem to realize that without it there would be either a stealth tax of the same value or a paid subscription of some kind - and they'd bitch and whine even more if there was only a wall to look at. I have no problem with the license fee. If only people would stop and think thats 37p a day and the majority of them spend four hours a day infront of the damn thing. 9p an hour is quite reasonable really.
In the United Kingdom, the current annual cost for a colour television licence (as of 1st April 2007) is £135.50 (about 200) and £44 (about 65) for monochrome TV (black and white).[32] The licence fee is charged on a per household basis. Therefore addresses with more than one television receiver only require a single licence. (However, this does not apply to sub-let rooms within a property where a the tenant requires a licence alongside the Landlord.) A similar licence, mandated by the 1904 Wireless Telegraphy Act, used to exist for radios, but was abolished in 1971. Therefore, those who only listen to radio and do not use television receiving equipment to watch or record programmes as they are being shown on TV, no longer have to pay a licence fee.
There are concessions for the elderly (free for over-75s[33]), the licence fee here being paid for by the government. Blind people get a 50% discount on their licence or completely free if only in possession of an audio only receiver. Residents of residential care homes (for the elderly and people with physical/mental disabilities) can apply for a special licence called the licence for Accommodation for Residential Care (ARC) which is £7.50 per year.
The licence fee can be paid annually, monthly or quarterly by Direct Debit, or monthly or weekly with the Monthly Cash Plan or Cash Easy Entry cards, which were introduced in the mid 1990s for those with limited means or no bank account. The Monthly Cash Plan works on the same basis as the Cash Easy Entry scheme and has been designed so as not to discriminate against those that do not receive benefits.
The licence fee represents approximately 75% of the BBC's income.[34] However, the UK's second public broadcaster, Channel 4, has claimed that it may need licence fee income if it is to continue with public broadcasting after the digital switch-over. To this end, on April 25, 2006, it was announced that Channel 4's digital switch-over bill would be paid for from the licence fee.[35] Some of S4C's programmes such as Pobol y Cwm and Newyddion, are made by BBC Wales and provided free of charge to S4C, meaning they are paid for by the licence fee.[citation needed]
Collection is enforced by criminal law. People accused of licence evasion are tried in a magistrates court. Violators can be fined up to £1000. Prior to 1991, the collection and administration of the UK licence fee was the responsibility of the Home Office. Since 1991, the revenue has been collected on behalf of the Government by the BBC and paid into Government's Consolidated Fund. From 1991 the fee was collected more directly by the BBC and was called the TV Licensing Authority. Since then collection has been contracted out and is now collected and enforced by TV Licensing Ltd, which is operated by Capita. As a consequence of the change the force of law in enforcing the licence has weakened somewhat[citation needed]. By 1994, 57% of all female criminal convictions in Britain related to television licence evasion [36
its NOT "iPlayer for linux" - its flash based player for ANY OS that support flash.
on one hand its not Linux client on the other hand its nice to see cross platform support. I know flash has its detractors but it is ubiquitous and it does work. On the plus side its not Silverlight.
Congratulations to the BBC/Government for listening and well done on at least allowing us to use their portal to view content.
Is this them "blurring the line" or "muddying the pond", whichever phrase you prefer.
Its strange, this might be a perfectly sensible, practical thing that helps us all - but I cannot help looking at MS through distrustful eyes and everything they do seems evil. Even though I realize I am doing it, I find it hard to stop. Hmm.
he broke the law, endangered his own life and countless others in a meaningless stunt, wasted a lot of money and filmed himself for the courts amusement.
I'll let somebody else find the links on the 'net but I remember reading an article on this subject, I also once wrote a Flash based filing system for a job I was working on (albiet a simple one).
The solution is to allow read and write in any section of the disk, but to create a new entry in the FAT for any changes to a block. In this respect if you wanted to change then you created a new block with a change copied from the old. The thing to remember is that there is no seek time with flash based disk and much of the complexity can be hidden in the FW. the effect is to write only on change and erase on a sector basis only occasionally.
models based on heavy disk usage and very limited number of erases proved they would last many many tens of years. the side effect is that you add a bit extra flash storage that is hidden for system use (kind of like double buffering by the FW). the benefits is no loss of data if you cut power (kind of like a journaled system), low power consumption and no susceptibility to sudden shock. Also the system keeps count of how many times it has erased sectors and is nice enough to give an "approximation" of hour many years it recommends that you use it. though when developing kit at work we run flash chips hundreds of times past the recommended 100,000 with no problems at all (so far, and we do not do it in production kit).
the whole system as described in the article seemed very promised, how they have implemented in behind an IDE/SATA interface I do not know, but I do now that they could not sell something that suffers from a lack of longevity so they must of done. Consider my bad explanation as a way that they *could* of done it.
A very, very long time on a gravity map - they'd need a MAGNETIC plot. Remember, TMA1 stands for "Tycho Magnetic Anomaly - One" thats how they found it.
Of course the gravity map *might* find the buried Atlantean spaceship because of its mini-blackhole power source, but I doubt it....
shame I cannot get MP3 from Amazon yet as I am in the UK.:-( Boo!
but I will be buying NIN and Radiohead albums - not only do I like the music its very important that the artist and the RIAA get the message.
though I suspect (and hope) they will be getting two very different messages.
the important thing to realize is that there will be no quick change here - the RIAA has the majority of artists by the short and curlies because they are mostly currently locked into draconian contracts for fixed duration and no. of albums. currently only the lucky few who are nearing the end of their terms (or should that be sentences) can escape to artistic and hopefully monetary freedom.
- the jury said they would of found her guilty even if infringement...
Not really relevant to the discussion unless we know what their instructions were from the Judge. They decide on points of law as directed only. Generally in yes/no form.
- we decided on this amount...
Yes, thats a bit insane. I cannot imagine why the Judge would of directed them to decide on the penalties as well.
- went to trial..
Of course it did. The RIAA knew full well this was only going to go one way (the silly moo wiped her hard drive) so they were only too happy to see this as the first one in front of a Jury.
- the woman was silly.
Yup. And her defense team sucked ass as well.
There are more interesting and potentially more important legal cases coming up on this issue. I feel slightly sorry for the lady in question, but she clearly stupidly followed up some stupid advice and swapped a $xk fine for life changing bankruptcy. Ouch.
lol. got one. actually makes a very good photo browser and I use it to play "another world" every now and then. ya sure pinged me there. if only the battery life was better even on 1500maH AAs.
.. lost all sense of dignity, proportion and pride".
For gawds sake it was only a film. this is almost as tragic as the people who turn their homes into "fully functional" Star Trek starship cabins.
I like StarWars as much as the next person, but have some pride and dignity. These people are clearly smart, motivated engineers - is this really the best they could do with their time? If you are that interested then why no go the whole hog and build a little mini UAV or enter one of the DARPA challenges or something. Hell, even Robot Wars would be better then this.
I wish you well, I hope you have not built a 21st century spruce goose - but please, find a better outlet for your undoubted and evident talents.
ah yes, that's what happens when you have a huge bank roll and an utter, ruthless determination to penetrate all markets regardless (xbox, media center, zune, mobiles, pdas). that way you can run at a loss whilst trying to unseat generally successful and entrenched designs with nothing more then pale imitations.
on one hand it's good business. on the other its desperate tactics.
on the gripping hand its still a untrusted (at least by me) DRM infected iPod wannabe with only the merest smidgen of innovation and limited wireless capabilities that make sense only if all your friends had zunes as well.
bottom line: if it was format friendly, had decent free and documented SDKs, and no DRM I would buy one in a flash - but as is? no way.
Slashdot Mirror
...for three hours!
rofl! I wish I could mod you up, but alas I have already posted.....
make your own DIY sputnik? Maybe.....
but I'd rather make my own DIY "rocket that launched it". Now thats got all the ingredients that makes any self respecting geeks eyes light up!!
I dunno, its home made, Heath Robinson, scrapheap challenge and scary as hell ...
... but strangely a lot more plausible then Air Wolf and Blue Thunder.
(I'm informed by a pilot colleague that without squash plates and cyclic controls - whatever the hell they are - its not a true helicopter and hence is uncontrollable. Still we all agreed it was better then we could do.)
I like the cost. "nominal one-off payment of 10,000 euros."
Nominal for large multinational corporations you means. How many open source projects will stump that?
Sure MS paid the fine, but have they succeeded in making things hard for the little developers?
Besides, fining MS is like siphoning your water from the Niagara falls - sure you get wet but you don't make a dent. I have held the view for a long time that fines for companies should be based on a percentage setting, that way firms of all sizes are hit more equally. Or maybe a formula based on size, income and percentage - there must be an improvement on current methods of setting penalties.
...are people surprised?
if enough people complain or walk then they will change their practices.
By the way - well spotted.
..any open source project "team" they buy can will be pointless as if there is enough support the last version will be forked by the community if there is a perceived need. I mean, call me simplistic but isn't that the main strength of open sourced projects? If you don't like it then fork it, if there is enough support then it will work. Survival of the fittest and all that...
....or when I hear about a politician actually doing something good and sensible the very first cynical thought I have is "what does he/she get out of it?"
thats very depressing.
If I wanted to browse the Internet in a mobile fashion I would be much more interested in a Asus Eee PC format that could browse cellular networks, anybody know if it can? They must be thinking of adding something other then wireless...
more power, more traditional format, proper keyboard/mouse, ok its bigger but its much smaller then a real laptop - and you can work on office documents and actually do something approaching tasks on it. now thats a toy I'm really thinking of getting....
http://www.itweek.co.uk/personal-computer-world/news/2192000/199-asus-ultra-mobile-uk-soon
is it proprietary? yes, thats bad.
but, is it on most browsers in the world? yes, and the plug-in is free, and thats good.
thats what I mean by ubiquitous. you wave a magic wand to remove flash and many/most of the big name websites (youtube, facebook to name two) have problems. as of June 2007 Flash was on 99.3% of desktops (source: wiki) - if that is not ubiquitous then I will eat my metaphorical hat along with a sizable portion of humble pie.
I did not claim it was the best solution, or even a good one - but it is a solution that certainly has coverage and is ported across most platforms. that is why it is a big step forward from the BBC, and I applaud them for it.
when there is a similar GPL system installed on >95% of browsers world wide you can be sure I will be celebrating, but for the time being I make do with what I have.
Indeed.
Unlike newspapers whose only income is from sales/advertising and have a desperate need to shunt embarrassing scoops and distorted news to sell copies. I think the newspapers have a hell of a lot to answer to.
3/4 of their income comes from the License fee, it pays for material, presenters, infrastructure, shows - without it there would be no BBC. Morons whine and bitch about it, but don't seem to realize that without it there would be either a stealth tax of the same value or a paid subscription of some kind - and they'd bitch and whine even more if there was only a wall to look at. I have no problem with the license fee. If only people would stop and think thats 37p a day and the majority of them spend four hours a day infront of the damn thing. 9p an hour is quite reasonable really.
For the interested, shamelessly cribbed from Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Television_licence
In the United Kingdom, the current annual cost for a colour television licence (as of 1st April 2007) is £135.50 (about 200) and £44 (about 65) for monochrome TV (black and white).[32] The licence fee is charged on a per household basis. Therefore addresses with more than one television receiver only require a single licence. (However, this does not apply to sub-let rooms within a property where a the tenant requires a licence alongside the Landlord.) A similar licence, mandated by the 1904 Wireless Telegraphy Act, used to exist for radios, but was abolished in 1971. Therefore, those who only listen to radio and do not use television receiving equipment to watch or record programmes as they are being shown on TV, no longer have to pay a licence fee.
There are concessions for the elderly (free for over-75s[33]), the licence fee here being paid for by the government. Blind people get a 50% discount on their licence or completely free if only in possession of an audio only receiver. Residents of residential care homes (for the elderly and people with physical/mental disabilities) can apply for a special licence called the licence for Accommodation for Residential Care (ARC) which is £7.50 per year.
The licence fee can be paid annually, monthly or quarterly by Direct Debit, or monthly or weekly with the Monthly Cash Plan or Cash Easy Entry cards, which were introduced in the mid 1990s for those with limited means or no bank account. The Monthly Cash Plan works on the same basis as the Cash Easy Entry scheme and has been designed so as not to discriminate against those that do not receive benefits.
The licence fee represents approximately 75% of the BBC's income.[34] However, the UK's second public broadcaster, Channel 4, has claimed that it may need licence fee income if it is to continue with public broadcasting after the digital switch-over. To this end, on April 25, 2006, it was announced that Channel 4's digital switch-over bill would be paid for from the licence fee.[35] Some of S4C's programmes such as Pobol y Cwm and Newyddion, are made by BBC Wales and provided free of charge to S4C, meaning they are paid for by the licence fee.[citation needed]
Collection is enforced by criminal law. People accused of licence evasion are tried in a magistrates court. Violators can be fined up to £1000. Prior to 1991, the collection and administration of the UK licence fee was the responsibility of the Home Office. Since 1991, the revenue has been collected on behalf of the Government by the BBC and paid into Government's Consolidated Fund. From 1991 the fee was collected more directly by the BBC and was called the TV Licensing Authority. Since then collection has been contracted out and is now collected and enforced by TV Licensing Ltd, which is operated by Capita. As a consequence of the change the force of law in enforcing the licence has weakened somewhat[citation needed]. By 1994, 57% of all female criminal convictions in Britain related to television licence evasion [36
its NOT "iPlayer for linux" - its flash based player for ANY OS that support flash.
on one hand its not Linux client on the other hand its nice to see cross platform support. I know flash has its detractors but it is ubiquitous and it does work. On the plus side its not Silverlight.
Congratulations to the BBC/Government for listening and well done on at least allowing us to use their portal to view content.
Is this them "blurring the line" or "muddying the pond", whichever phrase you prefer.
Its strange, this might be a perfectly sensible, practical thing that helps us all - but I cannot help looking at MS through distrustful eyes and everything they do seems evil. Even though I realize I am doing it, I find it hard to stop. Hmm.
he broke the law, endangered his own life and countless others in a meaningless stunt, wasted a lot of money and filmed himself for the courts amusement.
..and I am meant to be impressed?
thats great! MS finally realized that their OS boots up at about the same speed as a lethargic pig in treacle and decided to do something about it!
though they have scaled new and interesting heights of lateral thinking with this one...!
...darn.
...but it can pick up the giant Killroy okay, right?
Yes. I think they have
I'll let somebody else find the links on the 'net but I remember reading an article on this subject, I also once wrote a Flash based filing system for a job I was working on (albiet a simple one).
The solution is to allow read and write in any section of the disk, but to create a new entry in the FAT for any changes to a block. In this respect if you wanted to change then you created a new block with a change copied from the old. The thing to remember is that there is no seek time with flash based disk and much of the complexity can be hidden in the FW. the effect is to write only on change and erase on a sector basis only occasionally.
models based on heavy disk usage and very limited number of erases proved they would last many many tens of years. the side effect is that you add a bit extra flash storage that is hidden for system use (kind of like double buffering by the FW). the benefits is no loss of data if you cut power (kind of like a journaled system), low power consumption and no susceptibility to sudden shock. Also the system keeps count of how many times it has erased sectors and is nice enough to give an "approximation" of hour many years it recommends that you use it. though when developing kit at work we run flash chips hundreds of times past the recommended 100,000 with no problems at all (so far, and we do not do it in production kit).
the whole system as described in the article seemed very promised, how they have implemented in behind an IDE/SATA interface I do not know, but I do now that they could not sell something that suffers from a lack of longevity so they must of done. Consider my bad explanation as a way that they *could* of done it.
zzz.
When they snap the Apollo landing sites and see two sets of footprints leaving the capsule..
..and three returning that you need to start worrying.
Nah, I'm no so amused about the landing site, it's the enormous "Kilroy was here" on the darkside of the moon I'm wait for....
A very, very long time on a gravity map - they'd need a MAGNETIC plot. Remember, TMA1 stands for "Tycho Magnetic Anomaly - One" thats how they found it.
Of course the gravity map *might* find the buried Atlantean spaceship because of its mini-blackhole power source, but I doubt it....
My favorite game.
First time I played online I had my ass handed to me by a precocious 12 year old. Ah well, the memories.
*Alot* more complex and tactical then Chess, believe it.
See the rules at: http://www.britgo.org/intro/booklet.pdf
Play online here: http://www.pandanet.co.jp/English/
I recommend installing glGo and having a go vs. computer (on the easiest setting there is).
Enjoy, I do.
this is truly an interesting read.
:-( Boo!
shame I cannot get MP3 from Amazon yet as I am in the UK.
but I will be buying NIN and Radiohead albums - not only do I like the music its very important that the artist and the RIAA get the message.
though I suspect (and hope) they will be getting two very different messages.
the important thing to realize is that there will be no quick change here - the RIAA has the majority of artists by the short and curlies because they are mostly currently locked into draconian contracts for fixed duration and no. of albums. currently only the lucky few who are nearing the end of their terms (or should that be sentences) can escape to artistic and hopefully monetary freedom.
truly, we live in interesting times.
- Kazaa!?
Good grief. MP3s on Kazaa? thats old school.
- the jury said they would of found her guilty even if infringement...
Not really relevant to the discussion unless we know what their instructions were from the Judge. They decide on points of law as directed only. Generally in yes/no form.
- we decided on this amount...
Yes, thats a bit insane. I cannot imagine why the Judge would of directed them to decide on the penalties as well.
- went to trial..
Of course it did. The RIAA knew full well this was only going to go one way (the silly moo wiped her hard drive) so they were only too happy to see this as the first one in front of a Jury.
- the woman was silly.
Yup. And her defense team sucked ass as well.
There are more interesting and potentially more important legal cases coming up on this issue. I feel slightly sorry for the lady in question, but she clearly stupidly followed up some stupid advice and swapped a $xk fine for life changing bankruptcy. Ouch.
lol. got one. actually makes a very good photo browser and I use it to play "another world" every now and then. ya sure pinged me there. if only the battery life was better even on 1500maH AAs.
"lost tiree, lost dutch,...
.. lost all sense of dignity, proportion and pride".
For gawds sake it was only a film. this is almost as tragic as the people who turn their homes into "fully functional" Star Trek starship cabins.
I like StarWars as much as the next person, but have some pride and dignity. These people are clearly smart, motivated engineers - is this really the best they could do with their time? If you are that interested then why no go the whole hog and build a little mini UAV or enter one of the DARPA challenges or something. Hell, even Robot Wars would be better then this.
I wish you well, I hope you have not built a 21st century spruce goose - but please, find a better outlet for your undoubted and evident talents.
ah yes, that's what happens when you have a huge bank roll and an utter, ruthless determination to penetrate all markets regardless (xbox, media center, zune, mobiles, pdas). that way you can run at a loss whilst trying to unseat generally successful and entrenched designs with nothing more then pale imitations.
on one hand it's good business. on the other its desperate tactics.
on the gripping hand its still a untrusted (at least by me) DRM infected iPod wannabe with only the merest smidgen of innovation and limited wireless capabilities that make sense only if all your friends had zunes as well.
bottom line: if it was format friendly, had decent free and documented SDKs, and no DRM I would buy one in a flash - but as is? no way.
maybe, you have some valid points.
but the article also praised him for his approach and professionalism. he stated his views were his own.
personally I don't think there is such a thing as an impartial chairman - but there certainly can be unprofessional ones.