I'd hate to try to explain that to people who can't even find the way to save a file as pure text from Word
Why would you want to explain it? Wouldn't it be more productive to find a nice xml parser and write a utility for editing the msdnodc.xml file? It's a severely trivial programming challenge. Except that you'd have to build a Joe-Sixpack-compliant UI for it. But it's hardly Nobel material. Couple of hours in the hated VB, tops.
If you want to complain about something, complain about the fact that "Smart Links" are all hard-coded to point to MS properties, and the fact that the user cannot change that
Feel free to do that if you want to look silly
Alternatively, feel free to edit {driveletter}\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Smart Tag\Lists\msdnodc.xml to your heart's content, and get even, rather than getting mad.
It's all very clearly documented. Take a look at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/techart/odc_stxm l.htm for a start.
Do you realize that it's microsoft that picks the sites that other people can go to with this new "feature"?
No. I don't 'realize' that at all.
Because it's simply not the case.
The redirects are defined in a client-side file called msdnodc.xml with a clearly defined and well-documented DTD and plenty of documentation on the MSDN website.
Certainly, there will be a default set of redirects installed with XP, and I have no doubt that these will be chosen to M$'s advantage.
But I was under the impression (what!) that some/. readers considered themselves to be fairly competent with computers, and perfectly capable of editing a text file without Federal Court supervision.
Would you like me to pick up the toys and put them back in the pram for you now?
Look, it's NOT MICROSOFT who decides where the smart-tag redirects go (OK, so they will have some defaults, but it's very very simple to replace them or add your own).
If you use windows XP and you save the following to a file called msdnodc.xml to {driveletter}\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Smart Tag\Lists, then every time a page you're browsing contains the words microsoft, innovate, office, windows, 95, NT, XP, it will be squiglined and a right click will give you the choice to follow it to any of slashdot, red hat or goatse.
And that's a bad thing? remember, this is all client side.
just think, a single click to goatse every time you see a reference to XP...
<FL:name>
slashBot</FL:name>
<FL:lcid>
1033</FL:lcid>
<FL:description>
A list of MS related terms and suitable SlashBot comments on them.</FL:description>
<FL:moreinfourl>
http://msdn.microsoft.com/office</FL:moreinfour l>
<FL:smarttag type="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:smarttags#msdnterm s">
<FL:caption>
SlashBot Links</FL:caption>
<FL:terms>
<FL:termlist>
microsoft, innovate, office, windows, 95, NT, XP</FL:termlist>
</FL:terms>
<FL:actions>
<FL:action id="ODCWebSite">
<FL:caption>
&SlashDot Web site</FL:caption>
<FL:url>
http://slashdot.org</FL:url>
</FL:action>
<FL:action id="SlashdotWebSite">
<FL:caption>
Red Hat &Web site</FL:caption>
<FL:url>
http://www.redhat.com</FL:url>
</FL:action>
<FL:action id="Goatse WebSite">
<FL:caption>
Goatse &Office Web site</FL:caption>
<FL:url>
http://goatse.cx</FL:url>
</FL:action>
</FL:actions>
</FL:smarttag>
</FL:smarttaglist>
Look, it's a good thing, OK. If you use windows XP and you save the following to a file called msdnodc.xml to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Smart Tag\Lists, then every time a page you're browsing contains the words microsoft, innovate, office, windows, 95, NT, XP, it will be squiglined and a right click will give you the choice to follow it to any of slashdot, red hat or goatse.
And that's a bad thing? remember, this is all client side.
just thing, a single click to goatse every time you see a reference to XP...
<FL:smarttaglist xmlns:FL="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:smarttags:list ">
<FL:name> slashBot</FL:name>
<FL:lcid> 1033</FL:lcid>
<FL:description> A list of MS related terms and suitable SlashBot comments on them.</FL:description>
<FL:moreinfourl> http://msdn.microsoft.com/office </FL:moreinfour l>
<FL:smarttag type="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:smarttags#msdnterm s">
<FL:caption> SlashBot Links</FL:caption>
<FL:terms>
<FL:termlist> microsoft, innovate, office, windows, 95, NT, XP</FL:termlist>
</FL:terms>
<FL:actions>
<FL:action id="ODCWebSite">
<FL:caption> &SlashDot Web site</FL:caption>
<FL:url> http://slashdot.org</FL:url>
</FL:action>
<FL:action id="SlashdotWebSite">
<FL:caption> Red Hat &Web site</FL:caption>
<FL:url> http://www.redhat.com</FL:url>
</FL:action>
<FL:action id="Goatse WebSite">
<FL:caption> Goatse &Office Web site</FL:caption>
<FL:url> http://goatse.cx</FL:url>
</FL:action>
</FL:actions>
</FL:smarttag>
</FL:smarttaglist>
What does he see in these 'oh so pure' characters BUT evil? The evil of the ring corrupts all who come near it, and the quest to destroy evil leads people to questionable deeds. Ok, nothing like killing families in Vietnamese villages, but they still change utterly through the story. The end leaves you with an utter sense of loss, and none of the characters are ever the same. Even Hobbiton has been corrupted and scarred.
And bear in mind the time when Tolkien wrote the books. I wonder if you're not closer to the mark than you think with the Vietnam reference, if you just change 'Vietnam' to, let's say, 'Dresden'.
This was a time when it finally became clear that warfare was now industrialised. And a great number of people were struggling to come to terms with the stuff they'd had to do in the battle 'against evil'. and one of Tolkien's strengths was to take these thoroughly contemporary arguments and recouch them in the most traditional of terms. The war was won, but at the cost of the loss of vast areas of what had been british culture. And so, perhaps, the overwhelming sense of sadness and loss in the very teeth of victory
Since the uncrippled player gets sued out of existence
So just buy one by mail order from Taiwan, Korea, Australia maybe (since the DVD regioning thing).
I'm sure the governments can get away with outlawing manufacturing or selling these products, but under WTO rules they certainly can't get away with imposing a cross-border restraint-of-trade to outlaw buying them if someone not restricted by their domestic laws wants to sell them.
That's why here in Europe we can't legally ban GM seeds or foods. But as consumers, we can certainly choose not to buy them. Works both ways.
fight fire with fire. fight globalisation with globalisation. embarrass your enemy
Does this strike anyone as a bit creepy? Rifleing through a dead man's PC for snippets of work?
Oh, it's certainly a creepy process. After my dad died, one of the tasks that fell to me was to trawl his PC for documents, bank account details, tax stuff, contacts who needed to be informed of his death and, indeed, any remaining unpublished material (he was an academic of fairly high standing in a rather obscure field), particularly the commentary he'd been working on for the previous 15 years and had very nearly finished. It took one of his ex-colleagues about a year to get it finished, but as his family we're all very happy with the fact that it's out there and will probably be a major text in the field for many years to come, a fitting tribute to his knowledge and learning.
If the material is good, then it's a memorial to the late author's effort and talent. If it's not up to scratch and not likely to enhance the author's respect, then it should probably go quietly to the grave.
all depends on the material and the decision of his heirs. But it's a far from pleasant experience, the trawl
I have an old beat up Mazda truck. When it finally stops running, should Mazda be REQUIRED to take it back?
Yes, that's the way we're moving in Europe. Within the next ten years, barring a major change of direction, Mazda will, indeed, be legally obliged to take back its old trucks.
which gives them a fabulous incentive to make sure that the trucks it builds today are as recyclable as possible. This is why, for example, there are now, IIRC, 5 distinct plastics in a BMW car where there were upwards of 20 on their designs of a decade ago.
Yeah, lets prove it's bad for you before we do anything
Yup. It'sa classic line. And yet, in the early 1980's, where were the respectable refereed academic papers suggesting that feeding cattle to cattle would give rise to an incurable, fatal degenerative brain disease in humans?
In the 1960's, where was the proof that using Agent Orange would cause dioxin poisoning not just immediately, but in a second wave some 30 years later as they got concentrated through the food chain?
In the 1970's there were no proven risks from compulsory organophosphate sheep dip. Because, since these organophosphates were so hazardous no government would ever permit proper tests to be conducted. so, no proof.
Sometimes it's worth taking precautions against plausible risk, not just proven risk. Depends on the magnitude of the possible hazard, not on the level of contemporaneous proof.
what i found most interesting, in the BBC version, at least, was...
The report says the UK could fall foul of the European Human Rights Convention, which guarantees privacy to all individuals.
...
The European Commission is now expected to study the MEPs' report, to decide whether to take action against the UK over the alleged breach.
Now, the EHRC is incorporated into UK law under the Human Rights Act 2000. But on the other hand, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act imposes heavy penalties for witholding passwords to encrypted material when asked for it from the authorities.
And then there's the Official Secrets Act, which is just coming into conflict with the EHRC in the David Shayler case. And so far National Security appears to be stomping all over Human Rights.
I somehow can't see the UK government doing the decent thing here, not in a million years. And since it looks increasingly like Tony Shiny-Teeth-Nicey-Nicey Blair is about to get the biggest majority since the First World War Coalition, I can't see him giving a stuff about Human Rights. It's hardly been a strong point over the last 4 years.
Southwark Council includes encrypted mail along with rascist, sexist, defamatory content in their list of inappropriate content. Say *what*?? The world's general ignorance of PGP and encruyption is very depressing
I suspect this is less a matter of ignorance and more a matter of possible liability for the Council under the lovely, fluffy, entirely-for-the-greater-good save-the-little-children draconian monstrosity that is the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. Remember that under UK (insane) law, non-disclosure of a password to any law-enforcement official who decides to ask for it, for any or no stated reason, can land someone with a 10 year prison sentence.
And forgetting a password, or having never known it in the first place, or refusing to give it as the 'encrypted file' inquestion is not yours/not encrypted/a bunch of lost clusters, is implicitly stated in the Act to be no defence at all. Which is of course perfectly sane, reasonable, mature, civilised and a total affront to sanity.
OK, try a modern browser pointed at the same address...
Sorry, the hypertext and WWW information is no longer available on the info.cern.ch site.
The physical machine no longer exists. Please refer to one of the new sites described below
Inevitable, obvious, but still a little bit sad. Can anyone remember how many logins there were for www at info.cern.ch (i seem to recall it was about 20)?
I've still got a printout somewhere, about 10 pages of 6-point print but it was, at the time (late 1993) "the complete list of world-wide-web servers".
All.edu,.gov,.mil,.net or countrycodes (mainly.ac.*). Still no such thing as.com.
Can somebody please change the lameness filter so any post containing the words "et al" is automatically denied? Please?
In fact, could we just have a Latin Filter so that those amongst us who were denied the benefits of a proper education can be spared a lot of humiliation.
Perhaps we could start with i.e., e.g., etc., et al., ad hoc, ad hominem, post facto, de facto, per se, quid pro quo...
Technically we are transitioning to a global free market, but we're not there yet (dispite, as you say, some people's opinions)
Ahhh...:-)
Is that like the Soviet Union was transitioning to Communism?
Now there's a thought-provoker...
TomV
Re:Places you know in books...
on
The Business
·
· Score: 1
I found that Clive Barker's Weaveworld took on a special resonance, partly from its Liverpool setting, but especially from its setting of the great battle of the apocalypse on Thurstaston Common (west side of the Wirral peninsula, Cheshire, UK) where I used to go kite-flying, beachcombing, sunbathing and whatever after school.
It seems ridiculous to me that the migration laws between the Western industrialized nations are still so draconian.
No, it isn't ridiculous. It's evil and deeply offensive, and not just as it applies between Western Industrialised countries.
We have a purported global free market. Which is based on a big lie that is rarely voiced. In a free market, goods, services and labour follow behaviours driven by supply and demand.
In the Global Lie, Goods and to some extent Services move with the markets, but labour is forbidden to do so.
Consider - A works on a TV production line in Europe for XYZ corp. One day, XYZ corp decides to move all its production to, let's say, Malaysia, since the labour is cheaper. The law says no-one can stop them.
Consider - B works on a TV production line in Malaysia for XYZ corp. One day, B decides to move himself/herself and family to, let's say, Europe, since the standard of living is higher...
Don't believe any of this Global Free Market stuff. It's a Global Skewed Market, and it's been very carefully engineered.
I'm not angry about this from any sort of socialist lovey-dovey perspective, I'm angry about this because I believe in the power of free markets to improve everyone's lives. If they're allowed to be Free.
Tolkien started the trend, and for that I'm grateful. He even plotted a decent set of books. But as a writer, he pretty much blew
But remember, Tolkien wasn't a novel writer, per se. The Lord of the Rings wasn't (only) a novel written for you and me, it was also the manifestation of his scholarly work as professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford. It was also merely a milestone in the process of writing his Silmarillion.
In short, LOTR is to some extent a novel, but to a much greater extent (an attempt at) a Saga. He wasn't aspiring to write something to compete with, say, The Great Gatsby, but rather something that would stand comparison with the likes of Beowulf (one of his academic specialities) or Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and perhaps give him some insight into how these works came into being.
He's buried with his Luthien (Edith Mary Tolkien) about 2 miles south of here. I seem to be following him. Before living here I used to live in Hall Green, Birmingham, near Sarehole where JRRT grew up (Sarehole, The Shire?)
Dirk is just the funniest guy in fiction... I wonder if DNA based it on anyone he knows
It's a horribly long and complicated story... The whole Professor Trefusis with his chameleon time machine idea started out as a script for a Doctor Who episode called Shada, which was part-made but abandoned due to union activity in late 1979. But being a great idea, it survived, evolved and became the Dirk Gently material. This morphing of material was definitely one of DNA's strengths - just look at the evolution of the HHGTTG from Radio through the LP versions of the first two series, the stage play, the books, the game, the TV series.
Time to take that pocket-fluff covered aspirin from my dressing-gown pocket, I reckon.
I think there is no HHG6. Adams wrote Mostly Harmless with a pretty solid ending. Everyone dies back on Earth
Well, yes, but... Many many years ago, everyone dies on a Hagunennon Battle Cruiser (tweaked into Disaster Area's sundive ship forthe books). There was no way any of them could possibly have survived the end ofthe first series. And yet, somehow, Arthur and Ford managed to survive to get stranded on the prehistoric Earth, millions of years beforew any possible rescue method, and, yet...
If DNA had wanted to have another go with the characters, he undoubtedly had the creativity to come up with a get-out from the apocalypse itsef (bill arrives, pay for the meal, deal with the queueueue for the parking lot and head on home to put a penny in a savings account).
Arthur can be descended from who cares who... HE GOT THE ANSWER FROM THE CAVEMEN BECAUSE THEY PICKED THE ANSWER OUT OF THE HAT....
Well, the caveman picked the answer out of the Scrabble bag, but Arthur and Ford tried to follow this up by picking out the question which is where 6x9 came in.
how bout you read the frickin book ever? eh?
How about we don't join most of the rest of the planet by forgetting that the Guide started out by revolutionising Radio comedy to an extent unmatched since the Goons? I've been listening, yet again, to my poor, tired, 1980-vintage cassettes, grabbed from Radio 4 well after my bedtime... (got the CD's since but these tapes are personal) sheer untrammelled genius. From the Radio shows came the books and the (astonishingly silly) stage show. After these took off, the TV series kicked in. I guess (thank Zarquon) the film's not going to happen now.
For anyone who loves the books but never heard the Guide in its "native format", I'd strongly recommend that you try to get hold of the CD version of the Radio Series. I notice that www.douglasadams.com has, quite rightly, gone into dedicated book-of-condolences mode for the time being, but if the CD's ever reappear, grab 'em. This is the work of genius that kickstarted a career.
This whole invocation of the DMCA is garbage! If you look at anything in the world, one thing is a circumvention of another.
As far as I can see, this is a remarkably creative way of twisting the DMCA. Seems to me that they've taken the phrase "circumvent an Access Control System", as applied to cddbp, and extended it (from the obvious meaning of getting data from GraceNote over cddbp without paying a licence fee) to include the meaning "use an Access Control System to gain access to something other than what it originally accessed"
I like reductio ad absurdum. So, let's say ABC corp (gracenote) has a website to which I (roxio) have an account accessed by username and password submitted via an HTML form (cddp protocol). Now let's say I go to XYZ corp's (freedb's) site and create an account there using the same UID and pw as I use at ABC corp. Have I now "circumvented ABC corp's access control mechanism" by using that same mechanism (UID/pw, cddbp, take your pick) to access XYZ corp? Can I circumvent an access control system without ever attempting to access the controlled resource?
Melatonin isn't the great solution that some people think it is. Legit doctors think it's probably not a good idea. Just because it's "Natural" doesn't mean that it's safe or healthy. Hemlock is natural and it is kinda what the Greeks used for the death penalty, eh?
indeed, in the UK, melatonin is covered by the Misuse of Drugs Act. It's a Class C controlled substance (the same class as benzodiazepines and whatever). Illegal enough to lose you plenty of sleep, anyhow.
Bernoulli was 100% right. Commercial aircraft prove it millions of times a day. But, velocity and angle of attack can overcome the lift forces of an inverted wing.
As the interviewee in the NS article concluded (and I've not got my copy to hand right now), Bernoulli's not guilty here. Daniel Bernoulli (gotta be SO careful getting the right one - not Jacques, Johann or Nicholas) died in 1782, and therefore never made any attempt to explain how fixed-wing aircraft got their lift.
What the article was saying, though, was that while Bernoulli's equations describe the airflow around a lifting wing correctly, and are therefore extremely useful, they don't explain the production of lift. That's a simple consequence of Newton's 3rd Law (not that Newton was 'guilty' either). What the interviewee said is that the airflow effects are a nicely measurable (and hence extremely useful) consequence of the reaction forces that cause lift in the first place. But not a cause in their own right
Slashdot Mirror
Why would you want to explain it? Wouldn't it be more productive to find a nice xml parser and write a utility for editing the msdnodc.xml file? It's a severely trivial programming challenge. Except that you'd have to build a Joe-Sixpack-compliant UI for it. But it's hardly Nobel material. Couple of hours in the hated VB, tops.
TomV
Feel free to do that if you want to look silly
Alternatively, feel free to edit {driveletter}\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Smart Tag\Lists\msdnodc.xml to your heart's content, and get even, rather than getting mad.
It's all very clearly documented. Take a look at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/techart/odc_stxm l.htm for a start.
TomV
No. I don't 'realize' that at all.
Because it's simply not the case.
The redirects are defined in a client-side file called msdnodc.xml with a clearly defined and well-documented DTD and plenty of documentation on the MSDN website.
Certainly, there will be a default set of redirects installed with XP, and I have no doubt that these will be chosen to M$'s advantage.
But I was under the impression (what!) that some /. readers considered themselves to be fairly competent with computers, and perfectly capable of editing a text file without Federal Court supervision.
Would you like me to pick up the toys and put them back in the pram for you now?
TomV
If you use windows XP and you save the following to a file called msdnodc.xml to {driveletter}\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Smart Tag\Lists, then every time a page you're browsing contains the words microsoft, innovate, office, windows, 95, NT, XP, it will be squiglined and a right click will give you the choice to follow it to any of slashdot, red hat or goatse.
And that's a bad thing? remember, this is all client side.
just think, a single click to goatse every time you see a reference to XP... <FL:name>m s">
slashBot</FL:name>
<FL:lcid>
1033</FL:lcid>
<FL:description>
A list of MS related terms and suitable SlashBot comments on them.</FL:description>
<FL:moreinfourl>
http://msdn.microsoft.com/office</FL:moreinfour l>
<FL:smarttag type="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:smarttags#msdnter
<FL:caption>
SlashBot Links</FL:caption>
<FL:terms>
<FL:termlist>
microsoft, innovate, office, windows, 95, NT, XP</FL:termlist>
</FL:terms>
<FL:actions>
<FL:action id="ODCWebSite">
<FL:caption>
&SlashDot Web site</FL:caption>
<FL:url>
http://slashdot.org</FL:url>
</FL:action>
<FL:action id="SlashdotWebSite">
<FL:caption>
Red Hat &Web site</FL:caption>
<FL:url>
http://www.redhat.com</FL:url>
</FL:action>
<FL:action id="Goatse WebSite">
<FL:caption>
Goatse &Office Web site</FL:caption>
<FL:url>
http://goatse.cx</FL:url>
</FL:action>
</FL:actions>
</FL:smarttag>
</FL:smarttaglist>
TomV
And that's a bad thing? remember, this is all client side.
just thing, a single click to goatse every time you see a reference to XP...
<FL:smarttaglist xmlns:FL="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:smarttags:list ">e </FL:moreinfour l>m s">
<FL:name>
slashBot</FL:name>
<FL:lcid>
1033</FL:lcid>
<FL:description>
A list of MS related terms and suitable SlashBot comments on them.</FL:description>
<FL:moreinfourl>
http://msdn.microsoft.com/offic
<FL:smarttag type="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:smarttags#msdnter
<FL:caption>
SlashBot Links</FL:caption>
<FL:terms>
<FL:termlist>
microsoft, innovate, office, windows, 95, NT, XP</FL:termlist>
</FL:terms>
<FL:actions>
<FL:action id="ODCWebSite">
<FL:caption>
&SlashDot Web site</FL:caption>
<FL:url>
http://slashdot.org</FL:url>
</FL:action>
<FL:action id="SlashdotWebSite">
<FL:caption>
Red Hat &Web site</FL:caption>
<FL:url>
http://www.redhat.com</FL:url>
</FL:action>
<FL:action id="Goatse WebSite">
<FL:caption>
Goatse &Office Web site</FL:caption>
<FL:url>
http://goatse.cx</FL:url>
</FL:action>
</FL:actions>
</FL:smarttag>
</FL:smarttaglist>
TomV
And bear in mind the time when Tolkien wrote the books. I wonder if you're not closer to the mark than you think with the Vietnam reference, if you just change 'Vietnam' to, let's say, 'Dresden'.
This was a time when it finally became clear that warfare was now industrialised. And a great number of people were struggling to come to terms with the stuff they'd had to do in the battle 'against evil'. and one of Tolkien's strengths was to take these thoroughly contemporary arguments and recouch them in the most traditional of terms. The war was won, but at the cost of the loss of vast areas of what had been british culture. And so, perhaps, the overwhelming sense of sadness and loss in the very teeth of victory
TomV
So just buy one by mail order from Taiwan, Korea, Australia maybe (since the DVD regioning thing).
I'm sure the governments can get away with outlawing manufacturing or selling these products, but under WTO rules they certainly can't get away with imposing a cross-border restraint-of-trade to outlaw buying them if someone not restricted by their domestic laws wants to sell them.
That's why here in Europe we can't legally ban GM seeds or foods. But as consumers, we can certainly choose not to buy them. Works both ways.
fight fire with fire. fight globalisation with globalisation. embarrass your enemy
TomV
Oh, it's certainly a creepy process. After my dad died, one of the tasks that fell to me was to trawl his PC for documents, bank account details, tax stuff, contacts who needed to be informed of his death and, indeed, any remaining unpublished material (he was an academic of fairly high standing in a rather obscure field), particularly the commentary he'd been working on for the previous 15 years and had very nearly finished. It took one of his ex-colleagues about a year to get it finished, but as his family we're all very happy with the fact that it's out there and will probably be a major text in the field for many years to come, a fitting tribute to his knowledge and learning.
If the material is good, then it's a memorial to the late author's effort and talent. If it's not up to scratch and not likely to enhance the author's respect, then it should probably go quietly to the grave.
all depends on the material and the decision of his heirs. But it's a far from pleasant experience, the trawl
TomV
Yes, that's the way we're moving in Europe. Within the next ten years, barring a major change of direction, Mazda will, indeed, be legally obliged to take back its old trucks.
which gives them a fabulous incentive to make sure that the trucks it builds today are as recyclable as possible. This is why, for example, there are now, IIRC, 5 distinct plastics in a BMW car where there were upwards of 20 on their designs of a decade ago.
TomV
Yup. It'sa classic line. And yet, in the early 1980's, where were the respectable refereed academic papers suggesting that feeding cattle to cattle would give rise to an incurable, fatal degenerative brain disease in humans?
In the 1960's, where was the proof that using Agent Orange would cause dioxin poisoning not just immediately, but in a second wave some 30 years later as they got concentrated through the food chain?
In the 1970's there were no proven risks from compulsory organophosphate sheep dip. Because, since these organophosphates were so hazardous no government would ever permit proper tests to be conducted. so, no proof.
Sometimes it's worth taking precautions against plausible risk, not just proven risk. Depends on the magnitude of the possible hazard, not on the level of contemporaneous proof.
TomV
The report says the UK could fall foul of the European Human Rights Convention, which guarantees privacy to all individuals.
The European Commission is now expected to study the MEPs' report, to decide whether to take action against the UK over the alleged breach.
Now, the EHRC is incorporated into UK law under the Human Rights Act 2000. But on the other hand, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act imposes heavy penalties for witholding passwords to encrypted material when asked for it from the authorities.
And then there's the Official Secrets Act, which is just coming into conflict with the EHRC in the David Shayler case. And so far National Security appears to be stomping all over Human Rights.
I somehow can't see the UK government doing the decent thing here, not in a million years. And since it looks increasingly like Tony Shiny-Teeth-Nicey-Nicey Blair is about to get the biggest majority since the First World War Coalition, I can't see him giving a stuff about Human Rights. It's hardly been a strong point over the last 4 years.
Voting Liberal Democrat next Thursday.
TomV
I suspect this is less a matter of ignorance and more a matter of possible liability for the Council under the lovely, fluffy, entirely-for-the-greater-good save-the-little-children draconian monstrosity that is the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. Remember that under UK (insane) law, non-disclosure of a password to any law-enforcement official who decides to ask for it, for any or no stated reason, can land someone with a 10 year prison sentence.
And forgetting a password, or having never known it in the first place, or refusing to give it as the 'encrypted file' inquestion is not yours/not encrypted/a bunch of lost clusters, is implicitly stated in the Act to be no defence at all. Which is of course perfectly sane, reasonable, mature, civilised and a total affront to sanity.
TomV
Inevitable, obvious, but still a little bit sad. Can anyone remember how many logins there were for www at info.cern.ch (i seem to recall it was about 20)?
I've still got a printout somewhere, about 10 pages of 6-point print but it was, at the time (late 1993) "the complete list of world-wide-web servers".
All .edu, .gov, .mil, .net or countrycodes (mainly .ac.*). Still no such thing as .com.
Just unthinkable only 8 years later.
Progress, eh?
TomV
In fact, could we just have a Latin Filter so that those amongst us who were denied the benefits of a proper education can be spared a lot of humiliation.
Perhaps we could start with i.e., e.g., etc., et al., ad hoc, ad hominem, post facto, de facto, per se, quid pro quo...
It's all greek to me, anyway
TomV
Ahhh... :-)
Is that like the Soviet Union was transitioning to Communism?
Now there's a thought-provoker...
TomV
Lovely when stuff like that happens.
TomV
No, it isn't ridiculous. It's evil and deeply offensive, and not just as it applies between Western Industrialised countries.
We have a purported global free market. Which is based on a big lie that is rarely voiced. In a free market, goods, services and labour follow behaviours driven by supply and demand.
In the Global Lie, Goods and to some extent Services move with the markets, but labour is forbidden to do so.
Consider - A works on a TV production line in Europe for XYZ corp. One day, XYZ corp decides to move all its production to, let's say, Malaysia, since the labour is cheaper. The law says no-one can stop them.
Consider - B works on a TV production line in Malaysia for XYZ corp. One day, B decides to move himself/herself and family to, let's say, Europe, since the standard of living is higher...
Don't believe any of this Global Free Market stuff. It's a Global Skewed Market, and it's been very carefully engineered.
I'm not angry about this from any sort of socialist lovey-dovey perspective, I'm angry about this because I believe in the power of free markets to improve everyone's lives. If they're allowed to be Free.
TomV
But remember, Tolkien wasn't a novel writer, per se. The Lord of the Rings wasn't (only) a novel written for you and me, it was also the manifestation of his scholarly work as professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford. It was also merely a milestone in the process of writing his Silmarillion.
In short, LOTR is to some extent a novel, but to a much greater extent (an attempt at) a Saga. He wasn't aspiring to write something to compete with, say, The Great Gatsby, but rather something that would stand comparison with the likes of Beowulf (one of his academic specialities) or Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and perhaps give him some insight into how these works came into being.
He's buried with his Luthien (Edith Mary Tolkien) about 2 miles south of here. I seem to be following him. Before living here I used to live in Hall Green, Birmingham, near Sarehole where JRRT grew up (Sarehole, The Shire?)
TomV
It's a horribly long and complicated story... The whole Professor Trefusis with his chameleon time machine idea started out as a script for a Doctor Who episode called Shada, which was part-made but abandoned due to union activity in late 1979. But being a great idea, it survived, evolved and became the Dirk Gently material. This morphing of material was definitely one of DNA's strengths - just look at the evolution of the HHGTTG from Radio through the LP versions of the first two series, the stage play, the books, the game, the TV series.
Time to take that pocket-fluff covered aspirin from my dressing-gown pocket, I reckon.
Thanks DNA
TomV
"Oh yeah, and just who do you think you are, honey, Zaphod Beeblebrox or something?"
"Count the heads"
TomV
Well, yes, but... Many many years ago, everyone dies on a Hagunennon Battle Cruiser (tweaked into Disaster Area's sundive ship forthe books). There was no way any of them could possibly have survived the end ofthe first series. And yet, somehow, Arthur and Ford managed to survive to get stranded on the prehistoric Earth, millions of years beforew any possible rescue method, and, yet...
If DNA had wanted to have another go with the characters, he undoubtedly had the creativity to come up with a get-out from the apocalypse itsef (bill arrives, pay for the meal, deal with the queueueue for the parking lot and head on home to put a penny in a savings account).
Thanks Douglas.
TomV
Well, the caveman picked the answer out of the Scrabble bag, but Arthur and Ford tried to follow this up by picking out the question which is where 6x9 came in.
how bout you read the frickin book ever? eh?
How about we don't join most of the rest of the planet by forgetting that the Guide started out by revolutionising Radio comedy to an extent unmatched since the Goons? I've been listening, yet again, to my poor, tired, 1980-vintage cassettes, grabbed from Radio 4 well after my bedtime... (got the CD's since but these tapes are personal) sheer untrammelled genius. From the Radio shows came the books and the (astonishingly silly) stage show. After these took off, the TV series kicked in. I guess (thank Zarquon) the film's not going to happen now.
For anyone who loves the books but never heard the Guide in its "native format", I'd strongly recommend that you try to get hold of the CD version of the Radio Series. I notice that www.douglasadams.com has, quite rightly, gone into dedicated book-of-condolences mode for the time being, but if the CD's ever reappear, grab 'em. This is the work of genius that kickstarted a career.
I'm going to miss him...
TomV
As far as I can see, this is a remarkably creative way of twisting the DMCA. Seems to me that they've taken the phrase "circumvent an Access Control System", as applied to cddbp, and extended it (from the obvious meaning of getting data from GraceNote over cddbp without paying a licence fee) to include the meaning "use an Access Control System to gain access to something other than what it originally accessed"
I like reductio ad absurdum. So, let's say ABC corp (gracenote) has a website to which I (roxio) have an account accessed by username and password submitted via an HTML form (cddp protocol). Now let's say I go to XYZ corp's (freedb's) site and create an account there using the same UID and pw as I use at ABC corp. Have I now "circumvented ABC corp's access control mechanism" by using that same mechanism (UID/pw, cddbp, take your pick) to access XYZ corp? Can I circumvent an access control system without ever attempting to access the controlled resource?
It sure looks that way to me...
TomV
indeed, in the UK, melatonin is covered by the Misuse of Drugs Act. It's a Class C controlled substance (the same class as benzodiazepines and whatever). Illegal enough to lose you plenty of sleep, anyhow.
TomV
As the interviewee in the NS article concluded (and I've not got my copy to hand right now), Bernoulli's not guilty here. Daniel Bernoulli (gotta be SO careful getting the right one - not Jacques, Johann or Nicholas) died in 1782, and therefore never made any attempt to explain how fixed-wing aircraft got their lift.
What the article was saying, though, was that while Bernoulli's equations describe the airflow around a lifting wing correctly, and are therefore extremely useful, they don't explain the production of lift. That's a simple consequence of Newton's 3rd Law (not that Newton was 'guilty' either). What the interviewee said is that the airflow effects are a nicely measurable (and hence extremely useful) consequence of the reaction forces that cause lift in the first place. But not a cause in their own right
TomV