BUT, interestingly, the Serial Copy bit is often set on home-recorded minidiscs which prevents (on non-professional kit) making a direct digital copy of the contents to another MD, or DAT. Depending on the original recorder, you might or might not be able to make copies of the first disk, or copies of subsequent copies - even if you own all the copyrights etc. to the content.
I believe the SCMS (serial copy management system) was added to DAT and MD as some kind of trade-off or concession to the concerns of the copyright corporations. This was pre-DMCA, I think the Audio Home Recording Act might have something to do with it (but i'm flying from flimsy memory here).
At a glance, this sounds very much like the underlying interface stuff behind the Audiopad project (also from MIT, IIRC) - smart pucks moved around a projected image on the sensing surface. There were a few pucks which controlled various musical loops and one which acted as the microphone (the closer a loop was to the mic puck, the louder it played).
Not that I'm doing anything down - my guess is they're now making more general use of the stuff they'd developed for Audiopad, or Audiopad was just the first application they'd come up with, or something along those lines. Nice to see the technology back again actually, I've got a video of Audiopad and it's pretty cool.
Just the other day (literally!) I finally managed to get I-Lookup off of my friend's machine. The uninstaller available on i-lookup's FAQ page didn't work at all for me (it set the homepage to yahoo and unloaded the toolbar, but next run of IE the bar was back and the homepage reset to them).
Here's how I beat it: Spybot S+D. Online-Update that, do a full scan and such. Then look in the Tools section (the left hand part of the Spybot window in advanced mode is an outlook-type menu thingy) for the BHO tool.
Close all IE windows, toggle all the BHOs to OFF. Start IE, reset homepage to blank. Back to Spybot, turn on a couple of the BHOs (google toolbar if you've got it installed, etc). Back to IE to see if the bar's back. Trial+Improvement to work out which one is I-Lookup, leave that one turned off to stop it loading straight away.
After that, fire up regedit and look for the full title that the toolbar uses to describe itself in IE (I think it's "I-Lookup.Com Bar" IIRC, YMMV). In the middle of the class IDs there will be a match - delete that whole class ID key (save it out to a.reg first just in case you're wrong) then restart IE. Should no longer be running and no longer seletable from IE. Examine that registry entry more closely for the file name of the DLL it's loading the com object from and murder that by hand if you like.
Telephone Preference Service (tpsonline.org.uk) is the place to go to opt out of marketing calls in the UK. They accept registrations for mobile phone numbers as well, so if you're fed up with SMS spam they're the easiest fix.
Quoting directly from the site:
"Under Government legislation introduced on 1 May 1999 It is unlawful to make unsolicited direct marketing calls to individuals who have indicated that they do not want to receive such calls.
You can either do this by contacting companies directly and asking them not to phone you or you can register with a central service (The Telephone Preference Service) to stop all such calls."
According to the ToS and such, this is the free trial period and they reserve the right to limit new premium stuff (hitting POTS from the system, etc.) to paying members.
The current download does not contain any noticable crapware (i.e. nothing new in my task list, no silly behaviours - if someone with ad-aware wants to do a full scan to verify, go right ahead).
Now, I just need some people to talk to over it. Don't think I'm desperate enough to post my username here though!
Exactly. Skype doesn't bother you with that level of detail. You run it and get a typical IM-system sort of interface, you sign up and get a username. Both parties in a call can be behind a NATing firewall/router and still connect and talk, without having to know about port forwarding. That this is achieved by another (non-NATed) user's machine acting as a bridge for you is not something you need to understand in order to use the system.
But, Skype's not about to make any efforts to work well with games.
I'm using the Trillian 2 Pro Beta (I donated some cash back before there *was* a Pro, so I'm still coasting on the free subscription they gave me as a kickback) and I've not had any snotty emails from MS about this, so I'm guessing that Trillian 2's MSN transport is using the shiny new protocol or whatever.
This might be a good deadline for the Trillian dev guys to aim at for the public 2.0 free and 2.0 Pro releases, as an alternative to another relatively minor patch release on the old codebase.
At university, I was stuck on dialup (worse still, AOL - long painful story of inadequate comms infrastructure in Halls). One time, with a deadline pressing, I unplugged my external serial modem and gave it to my best friend who had already finished the assignment under orders to not return it until I could demonstrate either a complete assignment or a proper work-related need for it. Try the same with your ethernet lead (or wifi card, or whatever).
I also found that doing a scratch "document plan" in notepad for serious essay assignments helped - start with the big document structure and then fill in the detail until each little point equates to a couple of paragraphs of document. This makes it easier to achieve "something" at any given time - you can see a small unit of work to do rather than be struck dumb at the size of the entire task.
You end up with a final 'classification' on your degree:
First = amazingly good, please please stay on here and do a PHd. 2:1 = good at the material and academically minded 2:2 = probably either good at it and lazy (or poor in exams), or studious with less natural affinity towards the material 3rd =:-|
Can't really equate it to "GPA" or whatever because that concept doesn't exist over here at all. Also, UK degree courses stick very closely to the subject you're actually "doing" - rarely taking any modules that are entirely irrelevant to the course.
Cable and satellite carry the bbc channels including the extra digital-only ones (on satellite or digital cable, or for free on the new Freeview digital terrestrial service which took over when OnDigital died), and require a license.
The tv license fee funds about 8 BBC TV channels (bbc1-4, 2 kids channels, and some other stuff), 5 national radio stations (plus a couple more DAB ones) and large numbers of regional radio stations - and the beautiful little spat between Tony Blair's press henchman and the BBC over their coverage of the "dodgy dossier" (yeah, I brought up i**q, sorry) shows that there's no problem of the government controlling the BBC's direction at the moment.
The BBC does *have* commercial interests - selling videos/dvds of stuff, selling repeats of shows on to cable channels like UK Horizons et al - but they're not allowed to intrude on the BBC's own content (no ads, no show sponsorship, great care taken to avoid product placement and brand promotion). On balance, I find the tv license to be preferable to "breaking" the BBC.
The biggest offender of that one was MobyMonkey, and ICSTIS have shat on them from a very great height.
Useful info from that guardian link: "Complaints about unsolicited text messages which encourage you to call an premium rate line, should be made to Ictsis on 0800 500 212"
When buying physical goods which get shipped in and come through customs, VAT and import duty get charged if the value on the customs label exceeds a certain level (£18 in the UK).
"All" that this directive is doing is trying to make VAT collection happen for electronic goods+services transactions, but I'm not sure if it's really fair for cases where the service is not carried out in the EU (f'rinstance, am I going to start paying VAT on the cost of my US-based web hosting?).
Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 units, add CompactFlash WiFi cards (or normal wired ethernet CF NICs and cables, switches etc), and you should in theory be able to do the usual sort of clustering stuff that you do on a desktop linux machine (ok, might need to cross-compile the stuff for it). Alas, the java on the 5500 is understandably somewhat limited so rule out any hopes of doing a nice easy distributed system with java and RMI/CORBA across the devices (eek! I've done all my finals now, I need to let go of the material!).
Of course, heavy wifi traffic and lots of processing will murder the batteries on the zaurus reasonably promptly:-)
Or the more sensible reason, which is that they were going to call it Puck Man but realised how readily the machines could be vandalized to turn P into F.
Actually, it was a sneaky Red Dwarf reference which only appears in the book (it's the backstory to Kryten's introduction), but I think your comment is funnier on its own:o)
Personally I don't think they'll ever top using nuclear warheads to send lots of stars into supernova at once, just so that for a few months the message "coke adds life" is visible from earth night and day.
(Not sure if that dabs price is inclusive of VAT or not, but my figure of £350 from expansys is. Also remember we get systematically *reamed* on the retail price of all consumer electronics stuff over here)
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BUT, interestingly, the Serial Copy bit is often set on home-recorded minidiscs which prevents (on non-professional kit) making a direct digital copy of the contents to another MD, or DAT. Depending on the original recorder, you might or might not be able to make copies of the first disk, or copies of subsequent copies - even if you own all the copyrights etc. to the content.
I believe the SCMS (serial copy management system) was added to DAT and MD as some kind of trade-off or concession to the concerns of the copyright corporations. This was pre-DMCA, I think the Audio Home Recording Act might have something to do with it (but i'm flying from flimsy memory here).
At a glance, this sounds very much like the underlying interface stuff behind the Audiopad project (also from MIT, IIRC) - smart pucks moved around a projected image on the sensing surface. There were a few pucks which controlled various musical loops and one which acted as the microphone (the closer a loop was to the mic puck, the louder it played).
Not that I'm doing anything down - my guess is they're now making more general use of the stuff they'd developed for Audiopad, or Audiopad was just the first application they'd come up with, or something along those lines. Nice to see the technology back again actually, I've got a video of Audiopad and it's pretty cool.
Just the other day (literally!) I finally managed to get I-Lookup off of my friend's machine. The uninstaller available on i-lookup's FAQ page didn't work at all for me (it set the homepage to yahoo and unloaded the toolbar, but next run of IE the bar was back and the homepage reset to them).
.reg first just in case you're wrong) then restart IE. Should no longer be running and no longer seletable from IE. Examine that registry entry more closely for the file name of the DLL it's loading the com object from and murder that by hand if you like.
Here's how I beat it:
Spybot S+D. Online-Update that, do a full scan and such. Then look in the Tools section (the left hand part of the Spybot window in advanced mode is an outlook-type menu thingy) for the BHO tool.
Close all IE windows, toggle all the BHOs to OFF. Start IE, reset homepage to blank. Back to Spybot, turn on a couple of the BHOs (google toolbar if you've got it installed, etc). Back to IE to see if the bar's back. Trial+Improvement to work out which one is I-Lookup, leave that one turned off to stop it loading straight away.
After that, fire up regedit and look for the full title that the toolbar uses to describe itself in IE (I think it's "I-Lookup.Com Bar" IIRC, YMMV). In the middle of the class IDs there will be a match - delete that whole class ID key (save it out to a
Quoting directly from the site:
"Under Government legislation introduced on 1 May 1999 It is unlawful to make unsolicited direct marketing calls to individuals who have indicated that they do not want to receive such calls.
You can either do this by contacting companies directly and asking them not to phone you or you can register with a central service (The Telephone Preference Service) to stop all such calls."
... that's faux pas (literally means "false step").
According to the ToS and such, this is the free trial period and they reserve the right to limit new premium stuff (hitting POTS from the system, etc.) to paying members.
The current download does not contain any noticable crapware (i.e. nothing new in my task list, no silly behaviours - if someone with ad-aware wants to do a full scan to verify, go right ahead).
Now, I just need some people to talk to over it. Don't think I'm desperate enough to post my username here though!
"has ... clients and servers".
Exactly. Skype doesn't bother you with that level of detail. You run it and get a typical IM-system sort of interface, you sign up and get a username. Both parties in a call can be behind a NATing firewall/router and still connect and talk, without having to know about port forwarding. That this is achieved by another (non-NATed) user's machine acting as a bridge for you is not something you need to understand in order to use the system.
But, Skype's not about to make any efforts to work well with games.
Pick appropriate system for your needs.
Hello, Rupert Murdoch! Or is it Rebekah Wade (editor of the Sun, News Int's UK tabloid) or whoever's the editor of the Times (their broadsheet)?
I'm using the Trillian 2 Pro Beta (I donated some cash back before there *was* a Pro, so I'm still coasting on the free subscription they gave me as a kickback) and I've not had any snotty emails from MS about this, so I'm guessing that Trillian 2's MSN transport is using the shiny new protocol or whatever.
This might be a good deadline for the Trillian dev guys to aim at for the public 2.0 free and 2.0 Pro releases, as an alternative to another relatively minor patch release on the old codebase.
Is that an assertion that stores get a refund from their suppliers on all shoplifted merchandise?
Theft from a store is stealing from the store - the label has been paid for that CD.
Unlawful duplication+distribution is taking unfair advantage of the record label.
At university, I was stuck on dialup (worse still, AOL - long painful story of inadequate comms infrastructure in Halls). One time, with a deadline pressing, I unplugged my external serial modem and gave it to my best friend who had already finished the assignment under orders to not return it until I could demonstrate either a complete assignment or a proper work-related need for it. Try the same with your ethernet lead (or wifi card, or whatever).
I also found that doing a scratch "document plan" in notepad for serious essay assignments helped - start with the big document structure and then fill in the detail until each little point equates to a couple of paragraphs of document. This makes it easier to achieve "something" at any given time - you can see a small unit of work to do rather than be struck dumb at the size of the entire task.
You end up with a final 'classification' on your degree:
:-|
First = amazingly good, please please stay on here and do a PHd.
2:1 = good at the material and academically minded
2:2 = probably either good at it and lazy (or poor in exams), or studious with less natural affinity towards the material
3rd =
Can't really equate it to "GPA" or whatever because that concept doesn't exist over here at all. Also, UK degree courses stick very closely to the subject you're actually "doing" - rarely taking any modules that are entirely irrelevant to the course.
Cable and satellite carry the bbc channels including the extra digital-only ones (on satellite or digital cable, or for free on the new Freeview digital terrestrial service which took over when OnDigital died), and require a license.
The tv license fee funds about 8 BBC TV channels (bbc1-4, 2 kids channels, and some other stuff), 5 national radio stations (plus a couple more DAB ones) and large numbers of regional radio stations - and the beautiful little spat between Tony Blair's press henchman and the BBC over their coverage of the "dodgy dossier" (yeah, I brought up i**q, sorry) shows that there's no problem of the government controlling the BBC's direction at the moment.
The BBC does *have* commercial interests - selling videos/dvds of stuff, selling repeats of shows on to cable channels like UK Horizons et al - but they're not allowed to intrude on the BBC's own content (no ads, no show sponsorship, great care taken to avoid product placement and brand promotion). On balance, I find the tv license to be preferable to "breaking" the BBC.
Useful info from that guardian link: "Complaints about unsolicited text messages which encourage you to call an premium rate line, should be made to Ictsis on 0800 500 212"
When buying physical goods which get shipped in and come through customs, VAT and import duty get charged if the value on the customs label exceeds a certain level (£18 in the UK).
"All" that this directive is doing is trying to make VAT collection happen for electronic goods+services transactions, but I'm not sure if it's really fair for cases where the service is not carried out in the EU (f'rinstance, am I going to start paying VAT on the cost of my US-based web hosting?).
eBay have to charge VAT on their fees as paid by the seller, not the final item price as paid to seller by buyer.
Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 units, add CompactFlash WiFi cards (or normal wired ethernet CF NICs and cables, switches etc), and you should in theory be able to do the usual sort of clustering stuff that you do on a desktop linux machine (ok, might need to cross-compile the stuff for it). Alas, the java on the 5500 is understandably somewhat limited so rule out any hopes of doing a nice easy distributed system with java and RMI/CORBA across the devices (eek! I've done all my finals now, I need to let go of the material!).
:-)
Of course, heavy wifi traffic and lots of processing will murder the batteries on the zaurus reasonably promptly
"lose". L-O-S-E. Just the one "O" :-)
Or the more sensible reason, which is that they were going to call it Puck Man but realised how readily the machines could be vandalized to turn P into F.
Apple: Producer of Computers and Operating Systems
:o)
Orange: Mobile phone network
any questions?
Actually, it was a sneaky Red Dwarf reference which only appears in the book (it's the backstory to Kryten's introduction), but I think your comment is funnier on its own :o)
Personally I don't think they'll ever top using nuclear warheads to send lots of stars into supernova at once, just so that for a few months the message "coke adds life" is visible from earth night and day.
umm, by your logic, how can we have surround sound at all given that we only have TWO EARS?
(warning: above question is rhetorical - any attempt to answer it will be treated as an act of Iraqi Information Minister)
too busy to flesh this out, but imagine some thin pun along these lines: "mumble mumble Jackass mumble mumble" :-)
(Not sure if that dabs price is inclusive of VAT or not, but my figure of £350 from expansys is. Also remember we get systematically *reamed* on the retail price of all consumer electronics stuff over here)