I live in Kitchener Waterloo, Ontario. I've visited Ottawa. The only major difference between the cities (from what I could see) is that you have Parliament, and a downtown that's actually nice at night.;-)
I think the populations are even similar, but I could be wrong on that.
>Just because I haven't been hit by a car doesn't mean I don't daily and consistently see people drive poorly.
I don't disagree, I just state facts. What you are seeing them do, though, isn't the major cause of accidents, it's just annoying. Like the people who have 200 dB stereos in their cars. Some things aren't worth an officer's time (being one of the people with loud stereos, even when speeding, I've not been pulled over yet -- unless you drive in a manner that is dangerous, or the cop has a quota to meet, he really has better things to do -- like arrest robbers, etc).
>If you drive drunk your license is taking away.
Often, depending on the nature of the offense (say you blow a 0.10) you may be allowed to drive to work and back, if it is necessary. Exceptions are made for tools so important to daily life that living without them makes like a torture (even many dimmer switches would be outlawed -- some of them include microcontrollers).
>If you smuggle goods your car can be impounded.
You can buy a new car. And, besides that, the extreme laws against drugs are so pathetic, Canada's getting ready to give up on policing the weaker illegal drugs, like MJ.
>Why should pirates be protected?
They aren't being protected. They're being punished like any other criminal. If a robber breaks into a shop (an arguably much more serious crime than piracy) with a crowbar, does the judge outlaw his handling of basic tools? No.
>It will teach parents a lesson that ignoring their responsibilities is their fault.
No problems there, but I'd say a $100,000 fine would probably hit home a lot more than having to deal with their child's government imposed disability.
>We already have that
True, and it's a VERY controversial topic.
>For example, "americas most wanted" and "crimestoppers" both work on the sole premise of citizens reporting crimes/facts/tips.
[OT] The funny thing about those is that they say they're anonymous, but all toll free numbers are required to record ANI information, so they're not.
>We don't live in complete anarchy or dictatorships as far as I can tell.
That's because the cops "ignore" most of the tips, as they're just nuisance calls. I put ignore in quotes, because they don't really ignore them, just just take them down and do a half-assed job following them up.
True Example: An idiot driver threw some liquid out of their vehicle at my parents walking down the sidewalk. Having noticed the license plate number, they complained, and the police basically said "We'll do what we can". Nothing came of it. The police need a lot more than a whine call about a non-violent, non-serious crime, to put the gears into motion.
>If I'm at a college [which I am] and people around me in a lab are pirating [which they do often] I'd love to report them, collect say 100$ for getting them convicted. Not only do I pocket 100$ but I get bandwidth wasting jackasses off the already stressed computer network.
And you pay $1,000 in increased police taxes. It costs many thousands of dollars to give everyone their fair trial and investigation.
There's a fine balance between what's worth the RCMP's time, and what's an expensive nuisance that is better sorted out in private (for example, whining to the sysadmin that allowing piracy is putting the college at increased risk of lawsuits, etc). Busting students (which, when convicted, simply go bankrupt and don't pay anything, thereby costing the system money) isn't worth the police's time.
>Sorry your bleeding heart liberal arguments don't quite cut it.
Actually, I'm a cold-hearted libertarian -- I'm surprised you didn't notice that from the last paragaph in my previous comment. Oh well.
>Where I live [Ottawa, Ontario]. Many drivers "slide" through stop lines [specially in residential areas where kids and such walk], they speed, merge without signaling, change langes inappropriate [many seem to think you cutoff people instead of going behind], etc.
Ignoring traffic controls (ie: stop signs/lines/whatever) - 4% Speeding - 1% Failing to signal / inappropriate lane changes: 3%
Grand total: Accidents reduced by an absolute maximum of 8%. In fact, if it works as well as the photoradar blitz, accidents would be reduced by 0.5%. Somewhat less effective than the war on drugs. Well, a lot more than just "somewhat" less effective...
>Personally I think people rolling through stop lines should be fined 500$. I think speeders should have their license revoked. If the cops spent a day doing a traffic blitz they could probably catch a few hundred people [town of 50K here...] easy.
Personally, I think, as the stats suggest, there should be an enforced "dangerous conditions" speed (7% of crashes). Clearly driving when the weather is good is simply not a problem for Ontarians.
Also helpful would be proper patrolling of yeild signs (10% of crashes), and making it easier to arrest people for following too close (7% of crashes). I'd suggest a law about losing control of a vehicle (8% of crashes), but I think it's usually too late when that happens, anyways.
Technically, it should be illegal to drive properly (45% of crashes), but that's just plain silly.
I also think that speeds should be increased (the amount of people's lives that could be saved by ambulances being able to get to their destinations faster [from less traffic being on the roads] likely outstrips the "risks", which are so small they likely fall within the possible mistake zone of the statistics).
>Similarly, make piracy a huge penalty [e.g. compute ceased, fined 1000$ or etc] and blitz every so often.
Great. So you want to deny access to computers for piracy? Are you sure you've never taped a Hockey game? Do you realize this means offenders would have to be denied their right to use a phone? Do you realize that would mean the government would have to continue to support an extremely expensive and outmoded paper-based infrastructure?
Basically, you'll end up paying for their crimes.
Which reminds me, $1,000 would be a bargain if that's what it really was. In fact, it's usually more around the $100 - $200,000 range. A lot of pirate BBS sysops lost their homes, despite having, at best, maybe $20,000 of pirated software on their machines.
>If you report a pirate [who is convicted] you get x % of the fines. Get the geeks to hunt the pirates!
Yes, let's move from being a socialist country to being a dictatorship! You do realize that the method of control you suggest was the very most popular form of control used during Hitler's regime, right (it's simply a fact -- I'm not invoking Godwin's law here)? And that it was used as a control measure by the soviet union until the cold war was over?
Since we're making up laws to suit ourselves, though, let's outlaw those separate schools. I'm tired of paying for children to be brain damaged, and taught to violate our laws. And it's time to get rid of the CRTC (who make it illegal to have multicultural TV -- only Canadian monoculture is easily available) -- AND I'm tired of having these signals beamed at my house from space and not being able to manipulate them at will. It should be my right to do with any signals being sent to me, against my will, as I wish.
nicer smaller SHORTER cartridges. As in, can't fit most movies on a single tape without using a lower quality than VHS SP speed.
>and the Apple Macintosh, with it's user base of hysterically proselytising devotees.
Hmmm, superior because it's missing two mouse buttons? Or superior because if the power goes out you have to disassemble the unit to remove your floppy disk? Or superior because you can't turn it on without a keyboard?
Well, actually, I can say one more thing: That article was on open source AND Linux, not just Linux. So, you need to divide the numbers given by the number of popular open source applications and OSes.
Let's see if I can name a few: Mozilla, Linux, BSD, openssh, GNU utilities, gcc, apache, samba, and XFree (just a few from the top of my head).
The fact is there are so many more open source programs and utilities than Microsoft has ever published in their entire lifetime that Open Source wins (per application) by a long stretch.
THX-1138 really was the future! I like my hair, and I prefer "colours" other than white!
Then again, I could always run until they run out of money...
Re:You'll pry my TiVo out of my cold dead hands...
on
New Linux PVR Box
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· Score: 2, Informative
>2) When using the fast-forward (or the skip 30) features, the audio will drop out for a few seconds sometime after you resume playing at normal speed. It seems to happen every time and only mutes the sound for about 2 or 3 seconds.
The TiVo is probably searching for the next GOP, audio frame, or perhaps I frame. I suppose it could move backwards and compute where to cut the video, but that'd be a pain, and why bother? This is a problem inherent in all MPEG video.
With the skip 30 feature, it should just skip to the nearest GOP, but that wouldn't be exactly as advertised.
>3) Sometimes while scrolling through the "now playing list" the unit will hang. It will continue to queue up all the buttons you press but will not respond to any of them for 10 to 15 seconds.
This seems to be common to a lot of EPGs on North American receivers. If it's like any of the others I've seen, a fixed firmware (or in your case, software) will be sent down eventually. Seems they don't expect users to "abuse" the guide.;-)
It's probably having trouble downloading the latest info and paging through it at the same time.
>How do you find the remaining recording capacity? (You don't!)
If it's recording the feeds straight from DBS, it's pretty much impossible (they change the rate on the fly). Although, the rate is usually within the range of 1 mbps to 4.5 mbps. That doesn't really help all that much, though... ("Is it 2 hours or 9 hours I have left?")
Although I don't own such a unit, these are just edumacated guesses.
You've used the (infamous) Christian Children's Fund, or (less infamous) PBS reasoning to justify the software purchase.
"But it's only the cost of a coffee a day!". Fine. Let's pretend everything necessary to be part of a successful business costs just the cost of a coffee a day, per person, and we'll add it all up. Heck, I'll be nice and leave off some things that might not be used by the average office worker.
Desk
Books (x10)
Monitor
Computer
Keyboard and Mouse
Lights (x4)
Phone
Filing Cabinet
Printer
Office Space
HVAC
Seating
VMB
Pens, Pencils, Paper
Networking Equipment
Server
Water Cooler
Windows (TM)
Office (TM)
Specialized Software (x2)
I've really only covered a small amount of the essentials, and we're already up to $102 in absolute basic expenditures a day. In other words, by running an office, you need to spend the equivalent of the US GDP on the absolute most basic items (I haven't included anything specialty, and I've even missed some basics -- where are the workers supposed to go to the bathroom?). I'm sure if everything cost a coffee a day, a company would need to spend about $250,000 per worker per year. That's INSANE. That means that my small business would cost over $1 million to start up. If that's what it takes to run a business, you'd better be ready to spend $20 per chocolate bar (or, in my case, $10,000 per modchip).
OMG! My comments have to few characters per line! Help! Call the Paramedics! A little bit of Quarn to the rescue, then!
3: 5. Surely, those who deny the Signs of Allah, shall have a severe punishment. And Allah is Mighty, Lord of Retribution.
3: 6. Surely, nothing in the earth or in the heaven is hidden from Allah.
3: 7. HE it is who fashions you in the wombs as HE wills; there is none worthy of worship but HE, the Mighty, the Wise.
3: 8. HE it is who has sent down to thee the Book; in it there are verses that are firm and decisive in meaning - they are the basis of the Book - and there are others that are susceptible of different interpretations. But those in whose hearts is perversity pursue such thereof as are susceptible of different interpretations, seeking to cause discord and seeking wrong interpretations of it. And none knows it except Allah and those who are firmly grounded in knowledge; they say, `We believe in it; the whole is from our Lord.' - And none take heed except those gifted with understanding -
>Nobody gives a shit about 20%-50% more bloated code created by a GUI html tool if they can create html ten times faster on it. Especially when earning $$ depends on continually getting content out day in and day out.
100% agreed.
However, managers do give a shit when that shitty bloated code causes:
- Their browser to crash
- Their browser to fuck up the page
- Their browser to not even render items
You don't earn those $$ by pissing off managers, even if you run your own shop.
>Same reason 99% of the world doesn't use assembler.
No, there's a different reason for that. The reason is that time-tested and, overall, provably bug-free compilers exist for popular non-assembler languages, and they're easier to use.
But, use a frontpage wizard (or any other Microsoft product -- my favourite is PowerPoint to HTML conversions) to create a page, and watch it die on platforms not running IE 6.0.
When you can point out to me something that generates HTML that doesn't look like shit on anything but the browser it was "intended" for, I'll be impressed.
'Till then, this is shepd, with fonts set to 200%, signing off, noticing that almost all frontpage sites look like hell when their fonts are enlarged, but curiously noticing that slashdot doesn't look any worse.
>I know my University can determine what's being transfered over the networks if it has a reason to care.
It's called "in loco parentis". Universities, by law, are especially required to monitor, fully log, and babysit all traffic and users, to an extreme degree that no ISP would take it to.
I don't know about US ISPs, but having talked with a good friend who does deal with the logs at a certain (large) ISP, there are logs of what goes through the routers, but they are kept at an absolute minimum. There's barely enough data to figure out connections to and from certain IPs, never mind what was transferred through them.
>I could run Etereal on my own network and track everything anyone on my network is doing.
So could they, but they're too busy keeping the network up, like most ISPs. Since ISPs don't have the requirement to ensure all traffic going through their network is 100% legit, they have better things to do (again, this is my Canadian experience speaking -- perhaps, what with the DMCA and all those other crazy laws, the USA is different).
>If someone uploads pirated stuff to my server and some company comes along and threatens to sue me, I can pull up my logs and get the exact time the files were uploaded and what IP did it.
So could all other ISPs. But if that stuff is uploaded to Joe's ADSL connection, chances are really slim there'll be any usable logs. And P2P doesn't work by hacking FTP servers, it works by going from Joe's ADSL to John's Cable Modem connection.
>Look, I'm all for digital rights, but that's going too far. Jail time? Maybe an overnight stay with Bubba in cell block 3 will convince some college student that piracy is wrong, but this is too much. Ruining somebody's life because they didn't pay Sir Mixalot for downloading "baby got back?
9 months and 2,000 euros is nothing. Watch the FBI warning at the end of your next rental if you want to know what real piracy payback is. 5 years of pound me in the ass prison, and $250k fines.
And you supported this? This is pretty standard right now, worldwide, and has been so for, oh, I think at least 2 decades.
>The word "American" does not include people from Canada and Mexico, although the word "North American" does. Looks like you Canadians are no better at geography that we are.
First off, I said this continent; how you read that as just North America, well, your comprehension skills (and geography skills) need a lot of work. At the very best, you could have suggested that because of the Panama Canal I forgot South America, but that still includes that pesky Central America. But I haven't even started yet...
I can assure you of one thing, we're much better at english than you. In fact, we're also better at geography, by a large percentage. More importantly, we even know more about your country than you do. But there's more!
1. Of or relating to the United States of America or its people, language, or culture. 2. Of or relating to North or South America, the West Indies, or the Western Hemisphere.
3. Of or relating to any of the Native American peoples.
4. Indigenous to North or South America. Used of plants and animals.
n.
1. A native or inhabitant of America.
2. A citizen of the United States.
3. American English.
So, we can either invent a new, derogatory word for you (I like this option), or we can make all our sentences longer, by qualifying our meaning of "American" each time, such as: "That person, he is a United States American" (Yuck).
>So that puts 44% that dont agree with you. Six more percent and we're dead even. Doesnt sound "overwhelming" to me.
The US president was elected by a majority vote on far less percentage difference (in fact, when truncated, the difference was 0%).
If 0% difference can get a president elected, then a 6% difference in anything should be considered a landslide majority to anyone in the US.
>And you're even getting the benifit of the doubt by using thes statistics of your choice.
And, again, the US election was won on exactly the same grounds. Seems to me someone in the US should have no problem understanding how picking your own statistics (or votes, whatever the case may be) is a perfectly valid way of making decisions.
>The fact is, the United States had moral, legal, and political justification for removing Saddam Hussein. The world is a safer place for both Americans and Iraqis today than it was a few months ago, and it cost fewer lives than anyone estimated.
Get a grip and realise that your beligerent ways are scaring many first world countries, never mind the third world ones you add to belt. You are becoming the world's scary, evil superpower, just like the one you once "defeated" (converted is more like it). In fact, 45% of the world is scared of you, and 33% of your closest neighbours up North hold this opinion, so I'd say it's justified.
And yeah, I'm careful not to say "American" these days. I, like a lot of Canadians (and possibly others on this continent) want to distance myself from your country's insanity. You can't just walk into another country and take it over because it is easy, or because you disagree with what happens within their own borders. That's wrong. It always has been, and always will be. Period.
And, guess what... the overwhelming MAJORITY of the world agrees with me. 56% to be exact. And, to put the icing on the cake, 79% of the world feels the US will now make Iraq a permanent US colony.
>I'll never forget the images of those Iraqis beating that Saddam statue with the shoes off of their feet. It's a shame you have forgotten, or maybe you never opened your eyes up enough to see.
Neither will I forget. Those images stand for exactly what's wrong with the US's ways. Those people tore down that statue because they felt that the US was giving them freedom. Instead, the US is already divvying up the country to various corporations, and installing leaders with American ideals at heart, not Middle Eastern.
Yes, it does make it infinite. In fact, that is the very DEFINITION of analog.
analog: <electronics> (US: "analog") A description of a continuously variable signal or a circuit or device designed to handle such signals. The opposite is "discrete" or "digital".
Continuously variable, of course, means infinite.
If it were finite (like digital) you would be able to discern points if the image were blown up large enough. As you increase the size of a laserdisc image, you can clearly see each scanline, but you will not be able to discern any horizonal points if the source were analog, ever. It will simply become a smear, so there is simply no point giving LD a horizontal resolution -- doing so is a complete insult to the very idea of an analog signal. It would be like suggesting your skin has a "resolution" by counting the pores. It doesn't work.
The fact is that with an analog signal, with better technology the signal can be improved to any point you like by improving the signal to noise ratio.
In contrast, the definition of digital:
<data> A description of data which is stored or transmitted as a sequence of discrete symbols from a finite set, most commonly this means binary data represented using electronic or electromagnetic signals.
Which clearly specifies that digital is finite.
A sufficiently advanced analog device will always be better than a digital one, but far harder to design, and normally more expensive to record, so digital is preferred for its simplicity.
Actually, that's the letterbox resolution, which it specifies has the same amount of scanlines (vertical resolution) as DVDs. As I (and every EE in the world would also do so) have exlpained, because LD is analog, there is positively no point giving it a horizontal resolution. So, in fact, the quality of the picture, on a well designed, new (which they don't make, sadly) player can range from worse than DVD to better than DVD -- it's impossible to tell.
Now, when DVD gets more scanlines than NTSC video, we can reconsider this. But until then, the formats are relatively equivalent, and on my ancient LD player, (an old Pioneer industrial model) the output, apart from the usual analog signal problems (sparklies, etc) introduced by the aged crappyness of this player, is the same as DVD for quality.
>whereas IIRC the resolution of laserdisc is only somewhat better than VHS and not as good as DVD.
Laserdisc stores infinite horizontal resolution, and carries a full NTSC (or PAL, or whatever you like) signal, which, if done properly, ensures most of the 525 (or 625) lines of resolution are on a disc without laser rot. According the the FAQ it's actually 420 lines, but since they are 100% wrong on the resolution of DVD (500 lines is NOT a standard NTSC DVD resolution and won't play back on a great number of players, PAL or NTSC, *ONLY* 480 is compatible, *NO* other vertical resolution is supposed to be playable), and they can't make up their minds about LD resolution (it also suggests 482 lines), I doubt it's validity on these measurements.
Knowing now that laserdisc and DVD vertical resolutions are virtually identical, and knowing that laserdisc stores more horizontal information, we seem to see that laserdisc is superior. However, being an analog composite signal, it has the usual drawbacks, such as poor chroma separation, noise, and quality -- the effect of all depends highly on your equipment (modern comb filters are nearing perfection) and disc quality (laser rot, scratches, etc).
But, balanced with the obvious MPEG artifacts found in crappily encoded DVDs, it can be a tossup. I'd probably take the DVD anyways, because there's a lot more tangible features it has over LD (portability and ubiquity being two big ones).
>Now, instead of 1200 years, imagine what 100,000 years of language evolution would do to such a warning.
So, there's no way set up an annuity to pay someone once every 100 years to update the sign?
I'll put $1 in it right now. In 100 years that should pay someone to update the signs. Heck, it could be some sort of cool family tradition for some famous family -- every family member reaching 25 gets to redo the signs! Wow! Think of all the free press!
>Most people over-estimate the amount of damage caused by getting electircal equipment wet; distilled water has a pretty high resistence (13 MegOhms pops into my head), and tap water has less resistace but it's still not a dead short.
Exactly. I'm sure many geeks have turned on a PCB while holding it in their hands. With a lot of massaging, you _might_ find a combination of points you can hold that _might_ lock up the machine (temporarialy).
And, in general, you'll find your skin has a lower resistance than your average mostly pure water (nothing added purposely), often lower than 100k ohms (at least for myself). So, if your skin can't ruin the parts, what is water going to do?
Now, this doesn't include high voltage stuff, like CRTs, where you'd be an idiot to put your hands with the equipment on anyways.
>In the time it took you to do that script, you could have patched the IDE source to add your SiS chipset to the various internal "blacklists" and throttled it back to ATA-66 with 15k DMA transfers. Seriously, check the source.
So, if it's that easy, why didn't Alan do it rather than telling us to do this?
Just wondering, because you seem to know more about this than him.
Of course, then again, perhaps you didn't notice the sleeps? This interface doesn't like switching to DMA mode quickly, and will lock up. It would probably be a bad thing to have a near 10 second pause inside the kernel per controller. But maybe that's standard procedure now, and I really don't know what's going on.
All I can say is that unlike a lot of people, my SATA is running in DMA mode right now without random lockups, despite this wacky initialisation.
Well, I dunno about you, but I'm waiting for the time when I don't have to have this in my rc.S to get DMA functioning on my Si 3112 without crashing (and yes, the sleeps and syncs are required, and yes, I'm running the very latest -ac patch of the kernel [regular branch or not, it makes no difference]):
Blech! And that's not the first time bugs in the 2.4 series have locked me solid at boot -- for a time, creating a monolithic kernel with the bttv drivers would lock a system solid.
>When I was a kid, I always wondered why American programmes were so fuzzy
When you were a kid, unless you were living in France, programs were probably being broadcast at 405 PAL (well, actually far less considering how poor recording equipment of the era was), a far cry from the quality available from 525 NTSC lines, which, at the time, in black and white looked great (no colour shifts, obviously).
NTSC had the edge for many years before the UK woke up and improved their standard much later. And let's not forget that all your movies had (still have?) shorter run times due to the poor choice of PAL 25 fps, which doesn't divide well into 24 film fps, unlike 3/2 pulldown, which the NTSC system supports handily.
The only thing PAL really has over NTSC is better colour information (which hasn't mattered in decades). The fact is that NTSC transmits a better picture when one considers total data received by the set:
25 fps (PAL) @ 625 lines = 15,625 lines per second 29.97 fps (colour NTSC) @ 525 lines = 15,734.25 lines per second. 30 fps (B&W NTSC) @ 525 lines = 15,750 lines per second.
Any way you slice it, apart from the (long fixed) colour issue, NTSC beats PAL for everything, including total resolution.
>NTSC, CDMA, all these things that the USA insists are better, when they quite clearly aren't.
Tell you what, why don't you set your monitor to 50 Hz for a while and see that you don't come crawling back for 60 Hz NTSC goodness.
I ask everyone nowadays that I know who has been on a trip to europe if they felt their eyes bugging out on them when they watched TV over there. Without failure, the answer is always "Yeah, it's weird, their TVs hurt my eyes. How'd you know about that?"
>anyone would think i was trying to traffic drugs (although i've not tried, buying a bit of the white powder from over the pond would probably be easier).
Actually, that IS the problem.
Caffiene is a drug, and is heavily regulated under drug controls in some countries. For example, it is illegal to sell clear drinks in Canada that contain un-natural caffiene. Yes, USians, we don't have caffiene in our Mountain Dew, and this is why.
Perahps these people don't want to be bothered to find out from the UK what your drug import laws are? And then there'll be the special licensing for importing food/drink, etc, etc. Way too much work unless you wanted to buy a boxcar full of the stuff.
Slashdot Mirror
>How can something that has even a very marginal positive effect be LESS effective than that? Seriously?
;-)
Hey, it's just dry humour... Maybe next time I'll signify it with the
>First off, you probably don't live in Ottawa.
;-)
I live in Kitchener Waterloo, Ontario. I've visited Ottawa. The only major difference between the cities (from what I could see) is that you have Parliament, and a downtown that's actually nice at night.
I think the populations are even similar, but I could be wrong on that.
>Just because I haven't been hit by a car doesn't mean I don't daily and consistently see people drive poorly.
I don't disagree, I just state facts. What you are seeing them do, though, isn't the major cause of accidents, it's just annoying. Like the people who have 200 dB stereos in their cars. Some things aren't worth an officer's time (being one of the people with loud stereos, even when speeding, I've not been pulled over yet -- unless you drive in a manner that is dangerous, or the cop has a quota to meet, he really has better things to do -- like arrest robbers, etc).
>If you drive drunk your license is taking away.
Often, depending on the nature of the offense (say you blow a 0.10) you may be allowed to drive to work and back, if it is necessary. Exceptions are made for tools so important to daily life that living without them makes like a torture (even many dimmer switches would be outlawed -- some of them include microcontrollers).
>If you smuggle goods your car can be impounded.
You can buy a new car. And, besides that, the extreme laws against drugs are so pathetic, Canada's getting ready to give up on policing the weaker illegal drugs, like MJ.
>Why should pirates be protected?
They aren't being protected. They're being punished like any other criminal. If a robber breaks into a shop (an arguably much more serious crime than piracy) with a crowbar, does the judge outlaw his handling of basic tools? No.
>It will teach parents a lesson that ignoring their responsibilities is their fault.
No problems there, but I'd say a $100,000 fine would probably hit home a lot more than having to deal with their child's government imposed disability.
>We already have that
True, and it's a VERY controversial topic.
>For example, "americas most wanted" and "crimestoppers" both work on the sole premise of citizens reporting crimes/facts/tips.
[OT] The funny thing about those is that they say they're anonymous, but all toll free numbers are required to record ANI information, so they're not.
>We don't live in complete anarchy or dictatorships as far as I can tell.
That's because the cops "ignore" most of the tips, as they're just nuisance calls. I put ignore in quotes, because they don't really ignore them, just just take them down and do a half-assed job following them up.
True Example: An idiot driver threw some liquid out of their vehicle at my parents walking down the sidewalk. Having noticed the license plate number, they complained, and the police basically said "We'll do what we can". Nothing came of it. The police need a lot more than a whine call about a non-violent, non-serious crime, to put the gears into motion.
>If I'm at a college [which I am] and people around me in a lab are pirating [which they do often] I'd love to report them, collect say 100$ for getting them convicted. Not only do I pocket 100$ but I get bandwidth wasting jackasses off the already stressed computer network.
And you pay $1,000 in increased police taxes. It costs many thousands of dollars to give everyone their fair trial and investigation.
There's a fine balance between what's worth the RCMP's time, and what's an expensive nuisance that is better sorted out in private (for example, whining to the sysadmin that allowing piracy is putting the college at increased risk of lawsuits, etc). Busting students (which, when convicted, simply go bankrupt and don't pay anything, thereby costing the system money) isn't worth the police's time.
>Sorry your bleeding heart liberal arguments don't quite cut it.
Actually, I'm a cold-hearted libertarian -- I'm surprised you didn't notice that from the last paragaph in my previous comment. Oh well.
>Where I live [Ottawa, Ontario]. Many drivers "slide" through stop lines [specially in residential areas where kids and such walk], they speed, merge without signaling, change langes inappropriate [many seem to think you cutoff people instead of going behind], etc.
Let's see the amount of accidents each of these cause in our province:
Ignoring traffic controls (ie: stop signs/lines/whatever) - 4%
Speeding - 1%
Failing to signal / inappropriate lane changes: 3%
Grand total: Accidents reduced by an absolute maximum of 8%. In fact, if it works as well as the photoradar blitz, accidents would be reduced by 0.5%. Somewhat less effective than the war on drugs. Well, a lot more than just "somewhat" less effective...
>Personally I think people rolling through stop lines should be fined 500$. I think speeders should have their license revoked. If the cops spent a day doing a traffic blitz they could probably catch a few hundred people [town of 50K here...] easy.
Personally, I think, as the stats suggest, there should be an enforced "dangerous conditions" speed (7% of crashes). Clearly driving when the weather is good is simply not a problem for Ontarians.
Also helpful would be proper patrolling of yeild signs (10% of crashes), and making it easier to arrest people for following too close (7% of crashes). I'd suggest a law about losing control of a vehicle (8% of crashes), but I think it's usually too late when that happens, anyways.
Technically, it should be illegal to drive properly (45% of crashes), but that's just plain silly.
I also think that speeds should be increased (the amount of people's lives that could be saved by ambulances being able to get to their destinations faster [from less traffic being on the roads] likely outstrips the "risks", which are so small they likely fall within the possible mistake zone of the statistics).
>Similarly, make piracy a huge penalty [e.g. compute ceased, fined 1000$ or etc] and blitz every so often.
Great. So you want to deny access to computers for piracy? Are you sure you've never taped a Hockey game? Do you realize this means offenders would have to be denied their right to use a phone? Do you realize that would mean the government would have to continue to support an extremely expensive and outmoded paper-based infrastructure?
Basically, you'll end up paying for their crimes.
Which reminds me, $1,000 would be a bargain if that's what it really was. In fact, it's usually more around the $100 - $200,000 range. A lot of pirate BBS sysops lost their homes, despite having, at best, maybe $20,000 of pirated software on their machines.
>If you report a pirate [who is convicted] you get x % of the fines. Get the geeks to hunt the pirates!
Yes, let's move from being a socialist country to being a dictatorship! You do realize that the method of control you suggest was the very most popular form of control used during Hitler's regime, right (it's simply a fact -- I'm not invoking Godwin's law here)? And that it was used as a control measure by the soviet union until the cold war was over?
Since we're making up laws to suit ourselves, though, let's outlaw those separate schools. I'm tired of paying for children to be brain damaged, and taught to violate our laws. And it's time to get rid of the CRTC (who make it illegal to have multicultural TV -- only Canadian monoculture is easily available) -- AND I'm tired of having these signals beamed at my house from space and not being able to manipulate them at will. It should be my right to do with any signals being sent to me, against my will, as I wish.
>Witness the Betamax, nicer smaller cartridges
;-)
nicer smaller SHORTER cartridges. As in, can't fit most movies on a single tape without using a lower quality than VHS SP speed.
>and the Apple Macintosh, with it's user base of hysterically proselytising devotees.
Hmmm, superior because it's missing two mouse buttons? Or superior because if the power goes out you have to disassemble the unit to remove your floppy disk? Or superior because you can't turn it on without a keyboard?
Just wondering which makes it better!
All I can say:
Windows XP updates + patches: Over 100 MB.
Linux, kernel 2.4.21: 28 MB.
MB per MB, Linux wins.
Well, actually, I can say one more thing: That article was on open source AND Linux, not just Linux. So, you need to divide the numbers given by the number of popular open source applications and OSes.
Let's see if I can name a few: Mozilla, Linux, BSD, openssh, GNU utilities, gcc, apache, samba, and XFree (just a few from the top of my head).
The fact is there are so many more open source programs and utilities than Microsoft has ever published in their entire lifetime that Open Source wins (per application) by a long stretch.
THX-1138 really was the future! I like my hair, and I prefer "colours" other than white!
Then again, I could always run until they run out of money...
>2) When using the fast-forward (or the skip 30) features, the audio will drop out for a few seconds sometime after you resume playing at normal speed. It seems to happen every time and only mutes the sound for about 2 or 3 seconds.
;-)
The TiVo is probably searching for the next GOP, audio frame, or perhaps I frame. I suppose it could move backwards and compute where to cut the video, but that'd be a pain, and why bother? This is a problem inherent in all MPEG video.
With the skip 30 feature, it should just skip to the nearest GOP, but that wouldn't be exactly as advertised.
>3) Sometimes while scrolling through the "now playing list" the unit will hang. It will continue to queue up all the buttons you press but will not respond to any of them for 10 to 15 seconds.
This seems to be common to a lot of EPGs on North American receivers. If it's like any of the others I've seen, a fixed firmware (or in your case, software) will be sent down eventually. Seems they don't expect users to "abuse" the guide.
It's probably having trouble downloading the latest info and paging through it at the same time.
>How do you find the remaining recording capacity? (You don't!)
If it's recording the feeds straight from DBS, it's pretty much impossible (they change the rate on the fly). Although, the rate is usually within the range of 1 mbps to 4.5 mbps. That doesn't really help all that much, though... ("Is it 2 hours or 9 hours I have left?")
Although I don't own such a unit, these are just edumacated guesses.
You've used the (infamous) Christian Children's Fund, or (less infamous) PBS reasoning to justify the software purchase.
"But it's only the cost of a coffee a day!". Fine. Let's pretend everything necessary to be part of a successful business costs just the cost of a coffee a day, per person, and we'll add it all up. Heck, I'll be nice and leave off some things that might not be used by the average office worker.
- Desk
- Books (x10)
- Monitor
- Computer
- Keyboard and Mouse
- Lights (x4)
- Phone
- Filing Cabinet
- Printer
- Office Space
- HVAC
- Seating
- VMB
- Pens, Pencils, Paper
- Networking Equipment
- Server
- Water Cooler
- Windows (TM)
- Office (TM)
- Specialized Software (x2)
I've really only covered a small amount of the essentials, and we're already up to $102 in absolute basic expenditures a day. In other words, by running an office, you need to spend the equivalent of the US GDP on the absolute most basic items (I haven't included anything specialty, and I've even missed some basics -- where are the workers supposed to go to the bathroom?). I'm sure if everything cost a coffee a day, a company would need to spend about $250,000 per worker per year. That's INSANE. That means that my small business would cost over $1 million to start up. If that's what it takes to run a business, you'd better be ready to spend $20 per chocolate bar (or, in my case, $10,000 per modchip).OMG! My comments have to few characters per line! Help! Call the Paramedics! A little bit of Quarn to the rescue, then!
3: 5. Surely, those who deny the Signs of Allah, shall have a severe punishment. And Allah is Mighty, Lord of Retribution. 3: 6. Surely, nothing in the earth or in the heaven is hidden from Allah. 3: 7. HE it is who fashions you in the wombs as HE wills; there is none worthy of worship but HE, the Mighty, the Wise. 3: 8. HE it is who has sent down to thee the Book; in it there are verses that are firm and decisive in meaning - they are the basis of the Book - and there are others that are susceptible of different interpretations. But those in whose hearts is perversity pursue such thereof as are susceptible of different interpretations, seeking to cause discord and seeking wrong interpretations of it. And none knows it except Allah and those who are firmly grounded in knowledge; they say, `We believe in it; the whole is from our Lord.' - And none take heed except those gifted with understanding -
>Nobody gives a shit about 20%-50% more bloated code created by a GUI html tool if they can create html ten times faster on it. Especially when earning $$ depends on continually getting content out day in and day out.
100% agreed.
However, managers do give a shit when that shitty bloated code causes:
- Their browser to crash
- Their browser to fuck up the page
- Their browser to not even render items
You don't earn those $$ by pissing off managers, even if you run your own shop.
>Same reason 99% of the world doesn't use assembler.
No, there's a different reason for that. The reason is that time-tested and, overall, provably bug-free compilers exist for popular non-assembler languages, and they're easier to use.
But, use a frontpage wizard (or any other Microsoft product -- my favourite is PowerPoint to HTML conversions) to create a page, and watch it die on platforms not running IE 6.0.
When you can point out to me something that generates HTML that doesn't look like shit on anything but the browser it was "intended" for, I'll be impressed.
'Till then, this is shepd, with fonts set to 200%, signing off, noticing that almost all frontpage sites look like hell when their fonts are enlarged, but curiously noticing that slashdot doesn't look any worse.
>Konqueror?
Bundled with KDE? Alone... does it work like that? Or does it require a million KDE libraries to compile?
>Netscape?
YAY! Because RealPlayer is really the web browser... or is it winamp? I forget.
>I know my University can determine what's being transfered over the networks if it has a reason to care.
It's called "in loco parentis". Universities, by law, are especially required to monitor, fully log, and babysit all traffic and users, to an extreme degree that no ISP would take it to.
I don't know about US ISPs, but having talked with a good friend who does deal with the logs at a certain (large) ISP, there are logs of what goes through the routers, but they are kept at an absolute minimum. There's barely enough data to figure out connections to and from certain IPs, never mind what was transferred through them.
>I could run Etereal on my own network and track everything anyone on my network is doing.
So could they, but they're too busy keeping the network up, like most ISPs. Since ISPs don't have the requirement to ensure all traffic going through their network is 100% legit, they have better things to do (again, this is my Canadian experience speaking -- perhaps, what with the DMCA and all those other crazy laws, the USA is different).
>If someone uploads pirated stuff to my server and some company comes along and threatens to sue me, I can pull up my logs and get the exact time the files were uploaded and what IP did it.
So could all other ISPs. But if that stuff is uploaded to Joe's ADSL connection, chances are really slim there'll be any usable logs. And P2P doesn't work by hacking FTP servers, it works by going from Joe's ADSL to John's Cable Modem connection.
>Look, I'm all for digital rights, but that's going too far. Jail time? Maybe an overnight stay with Bubba in cell block 3 will convince some college student that piracy is wrong, but this is too much. Ruining somebody's life because they didn't pay Sir Mixalot for downloading "baby got back?
9 months and 2,000 euros is nothing. Watch the FBI warning at the end of your next rental if you want to know what real piracy payback is. 5 years of pound me in the ass prison, and $250k fines.
And you supported this? This is pretty standard right now, worldwide, and has been so for, oh, I think at least 2 decades.
>The word "American" does not include people from Canada and Mexico, although the word "North American" does. Looks like you Canadians are no better at geography that we are.
First off, I said this continent; how you read that as just North America, well, your comprehension skills (and geography skills) need a lot of work. At the very best, you could have suggested that because of the Panama Canal I forgot South America, but that still includes that pesky Central America. But I haven't even started yet...
I can assure you of one thing, we're much better at english than you. In fact, we're also better at geography, by a large percentage. More importantly, we even know more about your country than you do. But there's more!
11% of you don't know where you live.
83% of you don't know where you were bombing before Iraq.
25% of you don't know where Canada is (would you like some help?).
Now, from your very own "American" dictionary:
American
adj.
1. Of or relating to the United States of America or its people, language, or culture.
2. Of or relating to North or South America, the West Indies, or the Western Hemisphere.
3. Of or relating to any of the Native American peoples.
4. Indigenous to North or South America. Used of plants and animals.
n.
1. A native or inhabitant of America.
2. A citizen of the United States.
3. American English.
So, we can either invent a new, derogatory word for you (I like this option), or we can make all our sentences longer, by qualifying our meaning of "American" each time, such as: "That person, he is a United States American" (Yuck).
Now, run that geography idea by me again, flunky.
>So that puts 44% that dont agree with you. Six more percent and we're dead even. Doesnt sound "overwhelming" to me.
The US president was elected by a majority vote on far less percentage difference (in fact, when truncated, the difference was 0%).
If 0% difference can get a president elected, then a 6% difference in anything should be considered a landslide majority to anyone in the US.
>And you're even getting the benifit of the doubt by using thes statistics of your choice.
And, again, the US election was won on exactly the same grounds. Seems to me someone in the US should have no problem understanding how picking your own statistics (or votes, whatever the case may be) is a perfectly valid way of making decisions.
>The fact is, the United States had moral, legal, and political justification for removing Saddam Hussein. The world is a safer place for both Americans and Iraqis today than it was a few months ago, and it cost fewer lives than anyone estimated.
Only USians think that way. You have completely lost touch with the rest of the world; yet you somehow feel justified in telling others how it should be run. That's crazy.
Get a grip and realise that your beligerent ways are scaring many first world countries, never mind the third world ones you add to belt. You are becoming the world's scary, evil superpower, just like the one you once "defeated" (converted is more like it). In fact, 45% of the world is scared of you, and 33% of your closest neighbours up North hold this opinion, so I'd say it's justified.
And yeah, I'm careful not to say "American" these days. I, like a lot of Canadians (and possibly others on this continent) want to distance myself from your country's insanity. You can't just walk into another country and take it over because it is easy, or because you disagree with what happens within their own borders. That's wrong. It always has been, and always will be. Period.
And, guess what... the overwhelming MAJORITY of the world agrees with me. 56% to be exact. And, to put the icing on the cake, 79% of the world feels the US will now make Iraq a permanent US colony.
>I'll never forget the images of those Iraqis beating that Saddam statue with the shoes off of their feet. It's a shame you have forgotten, or maybe you never opened your eyes up enough to see.
Neither will I forget. Those images stand for exactly what's wrong with the US's ways. Those people tore down that statue because they felt that the US was giving them freedom. Instead, the US is already divvying up the country to various corporations, and installing leaders with American ideals at heart, not Middle Eastern.
>It is analogue. That does not make it infinite.
i son/
Yes, it does make it infinite. In fact, that is the very DEFINITION of analog.
analog: <electronics> (US: "analog") A description of a continuously
variable signal or a circuit or device designed to handle such
signals. The opposite is "discrete" or "digital".
Continuously variable, of course, means infinite.
If it were finite (like digital) you would be able to discern points if the image were blown up large enough. As you increase the size of a laserdisc image, you can clearly see each scanline, but you will not be able to discern any horizonal points if the source were analog, ever. It will simply become a smear, so there is simply no point giving LD a horizontal resolution -- doing so is a complete insult to the very idea of an analog signal. It would be like suggesting your skin has a "resolution" by counting the pores. It doesn't work.
The fact is that with an analog signal, with better technology the signal can be improved to any point you like by improving the signal to noise ratio.
In contrast, the definition of digital:
<data> A description of data which is stored or transmitted
as a sequence of discrete symbols from a finite set, most
commonly this means binary data represented using electronic
or electromagnetic signals.
Which clearly specifies that digital is finite.
A sufficiently advanced analog device will always be better than a digital one, but far harder to design, and normally more expensive to record, so digital is preferred for its simplicity.
(Both definitions courtesy of The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © 1993-2003 Denis Howe)
>According to:
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~leopold/Ld/ResolutionCompar
laserdiscs are 560x360 which is worse than DVD's.
Actually, that's the letterbox resolution, which it specifies has the same amount of scanlines (vertical resolution) as DVDs. As I (and every EE in the world would also do so) have exlpained, because LD is analog, there is positively no point giving it a horizontal resolution. So, in fact, the quality of the picture, on a well designed, new (which they don't make, sadly) player can range from worse than DVD to better than DVD -- it's impossible to tell.
Now, when DVD gets more scanlines than NTSC video, we can reconsider this. But until then, the formats are relatively equivalent, and on my ancient LD player, (an old Pioneer industrial model) the output, apart from the usual analog signal problems (sparklies, etc) introduced by the aged crappyness of this player, is the same as DVD for quality.
>whereas IIRC the resolution of laserdisc is only somewhat better than VHS and not as good as DVD.
Laserdisc stores infinite horizontal resolution, and carries a full NTSC (or PAL, or whatever you like) signal, which, if done properly, ensures most of the 525 (or 625) lines of resolution are on a disc without laser rot. According the the FAQ it's actually 420 lines, but since they are 100% wrong on the resolution of DVD (500 lines is NOT a standard NTSC DVD resolution and won't play back on a great number of players, PAL or NTSC, *ONLY* 480 is compatible, *NO* other vertical resolution is supposed to be playable), and they can't make up their minds about LD resolution (it also suggests 482 lines), I doubt it's validity on these measurements.
Knowing now that laserdisc and DVD vertical resolutions are virtually identical, and knowing that laserdisc stores more horizontal information, we seem to see that laserdisc is superior. However, being an analog composite signal, it has the usual drawbacks, such as poor chroma separation, noise, and quality -- the effect of all depends highly on your equipment (modern comb filters are nearing perfection) and disc quality (laser rot, scratches, etc).
But, balanced with the obvious MPEG artifacts found in crappily encoded DVDs, it can be a tossup. I'd probably take the DVD anyways, because there's a lot more tangible features it has over LD (portability and ubiquity being two big ones).
>Now, instead of 1200 years, imagine what 100,000 years of language evolution would do to such a warning.
So, there's no way set up an annuity to pay someone once every 100 years to update the sign?
I'll put $1 in it right now. In 100 years that should pay someone to update the signs. Heck, it could be some sort of cool family tradition for some famous family -- every family member reaching 25 gets to redo the signs! Wow! Think of all the free press!
>Most people over-estimate the amount of damage caused by getting electircal equipment wet; distilled water has a pretty high resistence (13 MegOhms pops into my head), and tap water has less resistace but it's still not a dead short.
Exactly. I'm sure many geeks have turned on a PCB while holding it in their hands. With a lot of massaging, you _might_ find a combination of points you can hold that _might_ lock up the machine (temporarialy).
And, in general, you'll find your skin has a lower resistance than your average mostly pure water (nothing added purposely), often lower than 100k ohms (at least for myself). So, if your skin can't ruin the parts, what is water going to do?
Now, this doesn't include high voltage stuff, like CRTs, where you'd be an idiot to put your hands with the equipment on anyways.
>In the time it took you to do that script, you could have patched the IDE source to add your SiS chipset to the various internal "blacklists" and throttled it back to ATA-66 with 15k DMA transfers. Seriously, check the source.
So, if it's that easy, why didn't Alan do it rather than telling us to do this?
Just wondering, because you seem to know more about this than him.
Of course, then again, perhaps you didn't notice the sleeps? This interface doesn't like switching to DMA mode quickly, and will lock up. It would probably be a bad thing to have a near 10 second pause inside the kernel per controller. But maybe that's standard procedure now, and I really don't know what's going on.
All I can say is that unlike a lot of people, my SATA is running in DMA mode right now without random lockups, despite this wacky initialisation.
Well, I dunno about you, but I'm waiting for the time when I don't have to have this in my rc.S to get DMA functioning on my Si 3112 without crashing (and yes, the sleeps and syncs are required, and yes, I'm running the very latest -ac patch of the kernel [regular branch or not, it makes no difference]):
/bin/sync /proc/ide/hdg/settings
/dev/hdg
/proc/ide/hde/settings
/dev/hde
/usr/bin/sleep 5
/usr/bin/echo "max_kb_per_request:15" >
/bin/sync
/usr/bin/sleep 2
/bin/sync
/usr/sbin/hdparm -X66 -d1
/bin/sync
/usr/bin/sleep 2
/bin/sync
/usr/bin/echo "max_kb_per_request:15" >
/bin/sync
/usr/bin/sleep 2
/bin/sync
/usr/sbin/hdparm -X66 -d1
/bin/sync
/usr/bin/sleep 2
/bin/sync
Blech! And that's not the first time bugs in the 2.4 series have locked me solid at boot -- for a time, creating a monolithic kernel with the bttv drivers would lock a system solid.
>When I was a kid, I always wondered why American programmes were so fuzzy
When you were a kid, unless you were living in France, programs were probably being broadcast at 405 PAL (well, actually far less considering how poor recording equipment of the era was), a far cry from the quality available from 525 NTSC lines, which, at the time, in black and white looked great (no colour shifts, obviously).
NTSC had the edge for many years before the UK woke up and improved their standard much later. And let's not forget that all your movies had (still have?) shorter run times due to the poor choice of PAL 25 fps, which doesn't divide well into 24 film fps, unlike 3/2 pulldown, which the NTSC system supports handily.
The only thing PAL really has over NTSC is better colour information (which hasn't mattered in decades). The fact is that NTSC transmits a better picture when one considers total data received by the set:
25 fps (PAL) @ 625 lines = 15,625 lines per second
29.97 fps (colour NTSC) @ 525 lines = 15,734.25 lines per second.
30 fps (B&W NTSC) @ 525 lines = 15,750 lines per second.
Any way you slice it, apart from the (long fixed) colour issue, NTSC beats PAL for everything, including total resolution.
>If you answered no to all of these questions then relax and have a beer. No one is looking for you.
And if you answered yes to some?
>Are you buying large quantities of fertilizer?
If you're a farmhand, sure.
>Castor beans?
Probably not.
>Do you transact exclusively in cash and demand payment from your employer in cash?
From what I've seen with most farmers, yes.
>Do you wire money to your uncle Osama every month?
No.
So, perhaps only 50% of all farms need raiding tonight?
>NTSC, CDMA, all these things that the USA insists are better, when they quite clearly aren't.
Tell you what, why don't you set your monitor to 50 Hz for a while and see that you don't come crawling back for 60 Hz NTSC goodness.
I ask everyone nowadays that I know who has been on a trip to europe if they felt their eyes bugging out on them when they watched TV over there. Without failure, the answer is always "Yeah, it's weird, their TVs hurt my eyes. How'd you know about that?"
>anyone would think i was trying to traffic drugs (although i've not tried, buying a bit of the white powder from over the pond would probably be easier).
Actually, that IS the problem.
Caffiene is a drug, and is heavily regulated under drug controls in some countries. For example, it is illegal to sell clear drinks in Canada that contain un-natural caffiene. Yes, USians, we don't have caffiene in our Mountain Dew, and this is why.
Perahps these people don't want to be bothered to find out from the UK what your drug import laws are? And then there'll be the special licensing for importing food/drink, etc, etc. Way too much work unless you wanted to buy a boxcar full of the stuff.