I'm one of the seemingly many who submitted this to Slashdot, and it certainly annoys me, however... I was thinking, what if Microsoft are doing this because of Youtube having rather a lot of unauthorised copyrighted content? You can often find whole episodes or even whole seasons of TV shows on Youtube, split up into 10 minute segments in Youtube's fantastic, high resolution better-than-bluray quality, and perhaps Microsoft had some legal paranoia that if they allow links to potentially copyrighted material, they could get in legal trouble... either that or they're in so deep with the media companies that they want to act as "Copyright Cops". In favour of this theory, there's that whole story posted recently about the Zune potentially refusing to play "pirated" content. On the other hand, I've not heard anything about them blocking popular torrent sites such as The Pirate Bay, and if they're setting up a competing service I can see them pulling this sort of crap. Whatever the truth turns out to be, this whole thing is very, very weird.
A green laser does not put out "more power" than a red laser, it's simply a much more visible wavelength (to the human eye) than red - a 5 milliwatt (or mw) laser is a 5 milliwatt laser, and is (strangely enough) outputting 5mw, whatever colour it is. This actually makes a green laser a little safer - because the human eye perceives green light as brighter, it's more likely to trigger the blink reflex and protect eyesight, at a lower energy output than a red.
I have once (in England) had to pay a £3 bus fair in 1 and 2 penny coins. The bus driver was certainly annoyed (and annoyed that i accidentally gave 3p too much) but he let me on...they've also let me on when I've been 2p short one time...so seems the bus drivers can be flexible about the issue, shame if the same can't be said for a university.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm one of the seemingly many who submitted this to Slashdot, and it certainly annoys me, however... I was thinking, what if Microsoft are doing this because of Youtube having rather a lot of unauthorised copyrighted content? You can often find whole episodes or even whole seasons of TV shows on Youtube, split up into 10 minute segments in Youtube's fantastic, high resolution better-than-bluray quality, and perhaps Microsoft had some legal paranoia that if they allow links to potentially copyrighted material, they could get in legal trouble... either that or they're in so deep with the media companies that they want to act as "Copyright Cops". In favour of this theory, there's that whole story posted recently about the Zune potentially refusing to play "pirated" content. On the other hand, I've not heard anything about them blocking popular torrent sites such as The Pirate Bay, and if they're setting up a competing service I can see them pulling this sort of crap. Whatever the truth turns out to be, this whole thing is very, very weird.
A green laser does not put out "more power" than a red laser, it's simply a much more visible wavelength (to the human eye) than red - a 5 milliwatt (or mw) laser is a 5 milliwatt laser, and is (strangely enough) outputting 5mw, whatever colour it is. This actually makes a green laser a little safer - because the human eye perceives green light as brighter, it's more likely to trigger the blink reflex and protect eyesight, at a lower energy output than a red.
I have once (in England) had to pay a £3 bus fair in 1 and 2 penny coins. The bus driver was certainly annoyed (and annoyed that i accidentally gave 3p too much) but he let me on...they've also let me on when I've been 2p short one time...so seems the bus drivers can be flexible about the issue, shame if the same can't be said for a university.
for some reason, i *always* misread "British Phonographic Industry" as "British Pornographic Industry"...
I'm pretty sure that we in britain have the BPI as our version of the RIAA, actually...may be wrong though