Well, we always switch the TV off at the switch as this is convenient for us, as we have cable TV and the cable remote controls volume and channel selection but can't switch the TV to standby. We never ever use the TV remote (in fact I think it's broken) and so switch the TV off manually.
OTOH we are contractually obliged to leave our set-top box on standby so it can download software updates overnight.
Yup, I just bought a K750. It arrived the morning before we went on holiday to Portugal, so we used it there as a camera rather than as a phone. The photos aren't professional quality, but they're no worse than you'd get with a disposable 35mm camera bought at the airport shop.
In fact I think it's these camera phones that are going to pull the rug out from ordinary digital cameras too - why carry two devices when you can carry one?
I know this article sounds like a load of old bollocks, but we had a weekend in Porto, Portugal recently, where food and drink in restaurants is cheap and plentiful, and we noticed that despite this (apparently the Portuguese like to eat out a lot, and it certainly wasn't just us tourists in the restaurants) there weren't any noticeable numbers of fatties around, except for us. Another thing we noticed was how many of the streets in Porto, especially the old town, were cobbled.
Except that if you code to W3C standards it will work in IE and Firefox and a whole lot more besides, so how does it cost more money?
On the site I work on, a major UK mobileco, we code to XHTML 1.0 now and browser compatiblity is usually a non-issue - in fact I find it easier to code using Firefox (with the utterly wonderful Web Developer extension) and then cross-check in IE.
We used to have far more headaches back when we had to provide backwards-compatibility with NS4.0, but now that the numbers of such users have dropped to single-digit numbers per month, we're XHTML all the way.
What would an electrical engineer be doing a millennia or three before the concept of resistors and capacitors?
S/he would be working in the fields all day long. If they were very lucky, they might be semi-free and would only have to worry about covering the rent whilst actually growing enough to live on. Most of them would be worrying whether their owner would decide that he had a few too many peasants and so decide to sell a few off or use them for sword practice.
I don't know what makes you say that the quality of television programming has gotten better. What do you typically watch in a day?
Well, as I live in the UK, I'm going largely by the US imports we get, which I do feel are overall of better quality today than ten or twenty years ago. Now, I know that the exports (presumably) represent the cream of US TV, but we make frequent enough trips over the pond to visit the in-laws that I do feel they're broadly representative of US telly - certainly I don't think the proportion of good shows to bad shows is any worse in the US than it is here.
Being British, but married to an American, I used to subscribe to the "of course British TV is better" point of view, but I have to say that in recent years, the quality of US programming has got better and better and British programming, has tended to get worse and worse.
Having said that, the sheer amount of advertising on US tv is quite jaw-dropping, and I hate the way they cut straight from the programme to the ad without any "end of part 1" malarky like we still have. US tv news is on the whole worse than the UK's I'd say, although it is good to see truly local TV news unlike the pathertic excuse for it we have in the UK.
[1] although I do think the BBBC has been getting rather better of late [2] [2] contrast though to the howling wasteland ITV has become
I think I read somewhere that's certainly the intention for Digital Audio Broadcasting, once analogue radio broadcasting is switched off. It'll be nice to be able to use my DAB further than a foot from the office window...
Try telling that to the relatives of those who died in Crossair flight LX498. The Swiss investigatory authorities concluded that cellphone interference was a factor.
Take commuting into central London. Even with the outrageously high rail fares, it's still cheaper for most people to commute by train than car when you factor in the high-price of parking in central London, and not to mention the Congestion Charge.
At least Southern's "cattletruck 5 across electrostar trains" do have some areas of 4 across seating. In Southeastern Trains land our cattletruck 5 across electrostar trains are 5 across throughout, except for first class of course.
And then there's the new class 376 "suburban Electrostars" which can't be described as cattletrucks as cattletrucks are a damn sight more comfortable!
There are no longer any guards (conductors in the US) on the London tube. Busy stations at busy times have station assistants on the platform who help to dispatch the train.
And we've had automatic train operation since 1967! (Albeit only on two lines out of 12.) So I'm afraid my reaction to this story is one big "meh".
Having distinctive colours makes it easy for partially-sighted people to distinguish them. Having them different sizes helps blind people to distinguish them.
Um, no. "Dollar" comes from "thaler", short for "joachimsthaler", a valley in medieval Germany where cold was mined and high-quality coins were minted.
No, our £5 coins are all commemerative, small-scale issues, and have never been minted in mass quantities. The Royal Mint was considering a mass-circulation £5 coin a few years ago but decided to wait and see if we'd join the Euro instead.
It's getting pretty common for cash registers in the UL to have a little slot above the cash tray for the cashier to hold your banknote in until they've given you your change.
For Christmas my wife got me a reconditioned old 1930s or 40s handset made by Bell Belgium of all places. It's great, has a *loud* bell (which scares the living bejesus out of the cat every time someone called us) and weighs half a ton.
The other day I knocked it off the table. Not a scratch on the phone, but one of the prongs of the receiver cradle punched a hole in the TV remote!
There's at least one cableco that now offers wireless broadband with the AP built into the CATV set-top box. As I don't use this product (I *do* have a hardware wireless router) I have no idea what, if any, security is built into it and whether it's enabled by default. To be fair, the cableco in question[1] seems to be relatively clueful, so quite possibly it is set up to be secure out of the box.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, we always switch the TV off at the switch as this is convenient for us, as we have cable TV and the cable remote controls volume and channel selection but can't switch the TV to standby. We never ever use the TV remote (in fact I think it's broken) and so switch the TV off manually.
OTOH we are contractually obliged to leave our set-top box on standby so it can download software updates overnight.
Seeing as the original article talks about authority to use nukes against suspected terrorists, I'd venture that this movie is even more apposite.
Yup, I just bought a K750. It arrived the morning before we went on holiday to Portugal, so we used it there as a camera rather than as a phone. The photos aren't professional quality, but they're no worse than you'd get with a disposable 35mm camera bought at the airport shop.
In fact I think it's these camera phones that are going to pull the rug out from ordinary digital cameras too - why carry two devices when you can carry one?
Yeah but you can bet your bottom dollar/pound/euro/yen that the price plans won't get any cheaper, even if there's next to no subsidy to pay off.
I know this article sounds like a load of old bollocks, but we had a weekend in Porto, Portugal recently, where food and drink in restaurants is cheap and plentiful, and we noticed that despite this (apparently the Portuguese like to eat out a lot, and it certainly wasn't just us tourists in the restaurants) there weren't any noticeable numbers of fatties around, except for us. Another thing we noticed was how many of the streets in Porto, especially the old town, were cobbled.
Clearly there *is* a correlation!
Except that if you code to W3C standards it will work in IE and Firefox and a whole lot more besides, so how does it cost more money?
On the site I work on, a major UK mobileco, we code to XHTML 1.0 now and browser compatiblity is usually a non-issue - in fact I find it easier to code using Firefox (with the utterly wonderful Web Developer extension) and then cross-check in IE.
We used to have far more headaches back when we had to provide backwards-compatibility with NS4.0, but now that the numbers of such users have dropped to single-digit numbers per month, we're XHTML all the way.
What would an electrical engineer be doing a millennia or three before the concept of resistors and capacitors?
S/he would be working in the fields all day long. If they were very lucky, they might be semi-free and would only have to worry about covering the rent whilst actually growing enough to live on. Most of them would be worrying whether their owner would decide that he had a few too many peasants and so decide to sell a few off or use them for sword practice.
Roy Stilling (ITCSRS) - I remember you well!
...I'd encounter another ex-HANTSNET coder.
I heard on the grapevine recently that HCC retired their last mainframe a couple of years ago, sadly.
Back in the 80s and 90s HCC had an entire intranet coded in Rexx, back before anyone had ever thought of the word "intranet".
Well said.
/.ers:)
(repeat after me UK
Whose bloody language is it anyway?
If it was meant to be spelled the American way it'd bloody well be *called* American, not English.
Ah, the hours of fun I have at home, seeing as my wife is both American and a sociolinguist and so has some rather diverging views from the above...
It's the "UK Ministry of DefenCe", not "Defense".
I don't know what makes you say that the quality of television programming has gotten better. What do you typically watch in a day?
Well, as I live in the UK, I'm going largely by the US imports we get, which I do feel are overall of better quality today than ten or twenty years ago. Now, I know that the exports (presumably) represent the cream of US TV, but we make frequent enough trips over the pond to visit the in-laws that I do feel they're broadly representative of US telly - certainly I don't think the proportion of good shows to bad shows is any worse in the US than it is here.
Being British, but married to an American, I used to subscribe to the "of course British TV is better" point of view, but I have to say that in recent years, the quality of US programming has got better and better and British programming, has tended to get worse and worse.
Having said that, the sheer amount of advertising on US tv is quite jaw-dropping, and I hate the way they cut straight from the programme to the ad without any "end of part 1" malarky like we still have. US tv news is on the whole worse than the UK's I'd say, although it is good to see truly local TV news unlike the pathertic excuse for it we have in the UK.
[1] although I do think the BBBC has been getting rather better of late [2]
[2] contrast though to the howling wasteland ITV has become
Higher bitrates for DVB
I think I read somewhere that's certainly the intention for Digital Audio Broadcasting, once analogue radio broadcasting is switched off. It'll be nice to be able to use my DAB further than a foot from the office window...
...simply won't take down an airplane
Try telling that to the relatives of those who died in Crossair flight LX498. The Swiss investigatory authorities concluded that cellphone interference was a factor.
Take commuting into central London. Even with the outrageously high rail fares, it's still cheaper for most people to commute by train than car when you factor in the high-price of parking in central London, and not to mention the Congestion Charge.
At least Southern's "cattletruck 5 across electrostar trains" do have some areas of 4 across seating. In Southeastern Trains land our cattletruck 5 across electrostar trains are 5 across throughout, except for first class of course.
And then there's the new class 376 "suburban Electrostars" which can't be described as cattletrucks as cattletrucks are a damn sight more comfortable!
There are no longer any guards (conductors in the US) on the London tube. Busy stations at busy times have station assistants on the platform who help to dispatch the train.
And we've had automatic train operation since 1967! (Albeit only on two lines out of 12.) So I'm afraid my reaction to this story is one big "meh".
What if you're partially sighted or even blind?
Having distinctive colours makes it easy for partially-sighted people to distinguish them. Having them different sizes helps blind people to distinguish them.
Um, no. "Dollar" comes from "thaler", short for "joachimsthaler", a valley in medieval Germany where cold was mined and high-quality coins were minted.
No, our £5 coins are all commemerative, small-scale issues, and have never been minted in mass quantities. The Royal Mint was considering a mass-circulation £5 coin a few years ago but decided to wait and see if we'd join the Euro instead.
It's getting pretty common for cash registers in the UL to have a little slot above the cash tray for the cashier to hold your banknote in until they've given you your change.
For Christmas my wife got me a reconditioned old 1930s or 40s handset made by Bell Belgium of all places. It's great, has a *loud* bell (which scares the living bejesus out of the cat every time someone called us) and weighs half a ton.
The other day I knocked it off the table. Not a scratch on the phone, but one of the prongs of the receiver cradle punched a hole in the TV remote!
Here in the UK, you need to get a registered gas fitter in to do pretty much anything to a gas appliance.
Makes sense to me.
There's at least one cableco that now offers wireless broadband with the AP built into the CATV set-top box. As I don't use this product (I *do* have a hardware wireless router) I have no idea what, if any, security is built into it and whether it's enabled by default. To be fair, the cableco in question[1] seems to be relatively clueful, so quite possibly it is set up to be secure out of the box.
[1] not the TLA-named one