It might be of some help to know how is it handled in other countries... Where I live (Spain), direct debit has been the rule since long ago: almost everybody does it this way. Utilities (electricity, telephony, gas, mobile phone), insurance, mortgage, all charge your bank account monthly or bimonthly. It is convenient (especially for them) and problems are not too common, although they exist. But then you can dispute the charges or go to the consumer protection office. Banks try to push you to do it this way: most of them only let you pay your bills only one hour per day (for example, from 10 am to 11 am only).
My personal take on all this: I like it this way. As I said before, problems are rare; it is far more usual to know someone that has had his credit card number stolen than to know a case of having trouble with direct debit. And to have something less to care about is worth it. Anyway, most of the time the bill gets to you by mail two or three weeks before the charge is made, so you can check it and have some time to fix the problems (good luck with that though). Overdrafts are allowed, but they are easy to avoid. Actually, banks like so much this system that they will equate having this kind of automated bill payment with being a regular, good customer: in most "fidelization" promotions, they ask you to have two or three bills paid through them.
Access network planning and optimization is a big expense for mobile network operators: selecting sites, anntenas and channel allocation, base stations, base station controllers... lots of complexity which has to be handled carefully to obtain a decent quality of service without breaking the bank. It is a full-grown discipline with its specialized training, books, professionals, etc.
Don't expect that WLAN can work magically without a similar effort.
That "1% false positive rate" is a not too well defined figure. 1% of what? Of "potential rogue waves, as detected by the radar algorithms"? Anyway, false positives can destroy confidence in the system: imagine you are commanding a huge supertanker where each maneuver costs big $$$ in fuel and time. Each two days, a warning comes telling you to change course because a rogue wave might be coming. I bet you would be disabling the 'rogue wave warning appliance' in a few weeks. Another problem is that you cannot guess, by looking at current weather conditions, whether a rogue wave warning might be a false positive or not, rogue waves being so unpredictable.
Same happens to the K600i, now I also have a Mr. AAA as the first entry in the contact book. The way I discovered this wonderful design was when I spammed with empty messages a business contact; not funny at all.
Same problem, same solution. We went to the same school, didn't we?
The R250 case was made of cast aluminum, we used to crack nuts with them. And it had full water sealing, in fact the user manual recommended washing it under the tap!
Commercially, it was an utter failure. Expensive to make, low market interest: very few people back what they say with their money.
Most likely, a small cellular base station will be installed on board, creating a "nanocell" inside the plane. Given the difference on power levels, mobiles will attach to it and not to the cell towers on the ground.
Try a Spanish keyboard: you have [,],{,} and also accented vowels for your é,è,ê, not to forget umlauts ÖÄöä and çe thingy. And the almighty Ññ, just in case we convince the French to drop the 'gn' combination:). I have worked some time in other European countries, and the variety of keyboard layouts is amazing. What I could never understand is the reason for having Y and Z changed in German keyboards...
Let me make a little correction: GM et al are worldwide operations, and they do sell small Diesel engines outside the US.
An example: in 1983, my dad bought a diesel Opel Kadett (a GM subsidiary). The engine had a puny 1600 cc, which is really little for diesels, even for small cars like the Kadett.
" If there are that many people that desperate to get into a university, the obvious question would be, why don't they just open more schools?"
That's what they did in my country! (somewhere in Southern Europe)
The result: very low academic standards, sky-high graduate unemployment, entry-level salaries for most professions (lawyer, doctor, engineer; programmers have it even worse!) lower than for most manual workers.
Ahhh, English, so few tenses to choose from... in fact, a blessing. In my mother language (Spanish, but I believe this applies to most languages derived from Latin), we have "almost past", "paster than past (refering to an action that happened before the one you are telling, which was also in the past)", "almost paster than past", the subjunctive tenses, the "future-past" (something that will have finished when THIS other actions takes place)...
is there any way this project won't end up crushed under the weight of its own bureaucracy?
No, not really. And before they can publish a single page of documentation, they will have to make sure it is translated to each one of the dozens of official languages of the Union. And make a good business case for the big incumbent telcos (FT, DT), big technology dinosaurs, and some submarine company planted there to make the project fail, everybody pushing conflicting requirements of course. I am thinking of many other projects where my tax euros can be spent much better, without leaving the technology realm...
Quote: in both [English and Latin], the spoken words are emitted from the caudal orifices of the speakers
Have you stopped to think what a caudal orifice is, or where is it located?
Now I understand why I always have this funny accent when speaking English... in my mother language, the spoken words are just emitted from the mouth of the speakers. So many years attending language courses, and nobody ever told me!
The solution is obvious to me: *never* accept a return without receipt/proof of purchase. In fact, where I live (not the USA) you are always required to bring the receipt when returning an item. If you cannot prove the product was bought there (or in that store chain), then you keep it.
That's exactly what happened where I work, some months ago. A guy entered the building (an endless string of repairs and re-repairs means there are always lots of construction workers and the like), went to the last floor (where management sits:), harvested three or four top-of-the-line laptops, and went away unmolested. That was at lunchtime. When the bosses came back, you could hear the cursing from three floors below!
Thanks God someone had been thinking for once and encrypted all laptop's hard disks...
We all think that, once you have paid the levy on blank media (thus being considered 'a criminal unless proved otherwise'), and this levy being equivalent to the IP cut the author/their representative gets from the CD price, then you are entitled to copy whatever you feel like.
Anyway, I have never heard reasoning like this before a judge...
[Writing from Spain, and feeling very sorry for this country...]
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I once watched a theatre piece that had exactly that plot. Shows very well how ridiculous is banning trade of some plants and their products...
It might be of some help to know how is it handled in other countries...
Where I live (Spain), direct debit has been the rule since long ago: almost everybody does it this way. Utilities (electricity, telephony, gas, mobile phone), insurance, mortgage, all charge your bank account monthly or bimonthly. It is convenient (especially for them) and problems are not too common, although they exist. But then you can dispute the charges or go to the consumer protection office.
Banks try to push you to do it this way: most of them only let you pay your bills only one hour per day (for example, from 10 am to 11 am only).
My personal take on all this: I like it this way. As I said before, problems are rare; it is far more usual to know someone that has had his credit card number stolen than to know a case of having trouble with direct debit. And to have something less to care about is worth it. Anyway, most of the time the bill gets to you by mail two or three weeks before the charge is made, so you can check it and have some time to fix the problems (good luck with that though).
Overdrafts are allowed, but they are easy to avoid. Actually, banks like so much this system that they will equate having this kind of automated bill payment with being a regular, good customer: in most "fidelization" promotions, they ask you to have two or three bills paid through them.
Access network planning and optimization is a big expense for mobile network operators: selecting sites, anntenas and channel allocation, base stations, base station controllers... lots of complexity which has to be handled carefully to obtain a decent quality of service without breaking the bank. It is a full-grown discipline with its specialized training, books, professionals, etc.
Don't expect that WLAN can work magically without a similar effort.
That "1% false positive rate" is a not too well defined figure. 1% of what? Of "potential rogue waves, as detected by the radar algorithms"? Anyway, false positives can destroy confidence in the system: imagine you are commanding a huge supertanker where each maneuver costs big $$$ in fuel and time. Each two days, a warning comes telling you to change course because a rogue wave might be coming. I bet you would be disabling the 'rogue wave warning appliance' in a few weeks.
Another problem is that you cannot guess, by looking at current weather conditions, whether a rogue wave warning might be a false positive or not, rogue waves being so unpredictable.
Same problem, same solution. We went to the same school, didn't we?
The R250 case was made of cast aluminum, we used to crack nuts with them. And it had full water sealing, in fact the user manual recommended washing it under the tap!
Commercially, it was an utter failure. Expensive to make, low market interest: very few people back what they say with their money.
Most likely, a small cellular base station will be installed on board, creating a "nanocell" inside the plane. Given the difference on power levels, mobiles will attach to it and not to the cell towers on the ground.
An example
Lizard milk, you ignorant clod!
May the Gods listen to your prayers!
- Letter Ñ is on the home row, where the American keyboard has
;/:
- Accented letters á, à, ä, ê, are typed: first the accent key, then the vowel
- Square and curly brackets []{} by pressing 'AltGr'
- Ç is the rightmost key in the home row, beside 'Enter'
Check some layout on the web, you might find it useful.Try a Spanish keyboard: you have [,],{,} and also accented vowels for your é,è,ê, not to forget umlauts ÖÄöä and çe thingy. And the almighty Ññ, just in case we convince the French to drop the 'gn' combination :).
I have worked some time in other European countries, and the variety of keyboard layouts is amazing. What I could never understand is the reason for having Y and Z changed in German keyboards...
It is in fact an old joke... There is even a well known rock group called 'Extremoduro', see http://www.extremoduro.com/
Let me make a little correction: GM et al are worldwide operations, and they do sell small Diesel engines outside the US.
An example: in 1983, my dad bought a diesel Opel Kadett (a GM subsidiary). The engine had a puny 1600 cc, which is really little for diesels, even for small cars like the Kadett.
" If there are that many people that desperate to get into a university, the obvious question would be, why don't they just open more schools?"
That's what they did in my country! (somewhere in Southern Europe)
The result: very low academic standards, sky-high graduate unemployment, entry-level salaries for most professions (lawyer, doctor, engineer; programmers have it even worse!) lower than for most manual workers.
Which has SIX tenses in the language I was talking about. Each of them with its own nuances of course...
Ahhh, English, so few tenses to choose from... in fact, a blessing. In my mother language (Spanish, but I believe this applies to most languages derived from Latin), we have "almost past", "paster than past (refering to an action that happened before the one you are telling, which was also in the past)", "almost paster than past", the subjunctive tenses, the "future-past" (something that will have finished when THIS other actions takes place)...
As someone once said,
No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.
is there any way this project won't end up crushed under the weight of its own bureaucracy?
No, not really. And before they can publish a single page of documentation, they will have to make sure it is translated to each one of the dozens of official languages of the Union. And make a good business case for the big incumbent telcos (FT, DT), big technology dinosaurs, and some submarine company planted there to make the project fail, everybody pushing conflicting requirements of course.
I am thinking of many other projects where my tax euros can be spent much better, without leaving the technology realm...
it was not going to be a success, after having seen what I once saw:
A poor devil speaking through one of those.
He had to hold it sideways! (long edge of the phone facing his ear).
Quote: in both [English and Latin], the spoken words are emitted from the caudal orifices of the speakers
Have you stopped to think what a caudal orifice is, or where is it located?
Now I understand why I always have this funny accent when speaking English... in my mother language, the spoken words are just emitted from the mouth of the speakers. So many years attending language courses, and nobody ever told me!
The solution is obvious to me: *never* accept a return without receipt/proof of purchase. In fact, where I live (not the USA) you are always required to bring the receipt when returning an item. If you cannot prove the product was bought there (or in that store chain), then you keep it.
That's exactly what happened where I work, some months ago. A guy entered the building (an endless string of repairs and re-repairs means there are always lots of construction workers and the like), went to the last floor (where management sits
That was at lunchtime. When the bosses came back, you could hear the cursing from three floors below!
Thanks God someone had been thinking for once and encrypted all laptop's hard disks...
If you mean what I think you want to mean, please write cojones.
;)
"Cajones" means "drawers", as in furniture. And I like the unintended effect on the reader
In my case, thirty minutes per year (average).
We all think that, once you have paid the levy on blank media (thus being considered 'a criminal unless proved otherwise'), and this levy being equivalent to the IP cut the author/their representative gets from the CD price, then you are entitled to copy whatever you feel like.
Anyway, I have never heard reasoning like this before a judge...
[Writing from Spain, and feeling very sorry for this country...]