People pulling down the wild feed via their dish has been around for ages. Whilst in the case of some shows it's only a few hours in some cases it can be days (eg Buffy was transmitted at 8pm on a Tuesday but the wild feed was 05:00 EST/EDT on Sunday giving fans a lead of 2.5 days).
The TV industry is well aware of the leaks to the extent that sometimes wildfeeds for particularly important (cliffhangery) episodes will be delayed to just hours before the show is due to air to ensure the suspense.
One the subject of Buffy finales being transmitted outside the US before within the US the case where this happened was the Season 3 (1999) finale "Graduation Day Part II" which was pulled because it depicted a bunch of High School students killing a giant snake with high explosives, flame throwers and battle axes, it was felt that in the aftermath of Columbine this might inspire violence in school.
Whilst I'm sure that a lot of the legal/medical shows have real howlers of errors it's worth bearing in mind that they frequently employ medical/legal advisors to make sure that they're not too bad. Also you can buy books with titles like "Medical Procedures for writers" and "Police Procedures for writers" which layout how to accurately write about legal/medical matters.
I have yet to see a geek advisor creditied or a book shop carrying "Geek Procedures for writers".
Something I recently came accross that some/.ers may find interesting or even useful. I was recently involved in a project to provide local council information over a web interface to the citizens. We consulted a number of suppliers omn this and one of the few common statements from all of them was that currently just over 60% of all web users use a device other than a computer to browse (eg WebTV, IdTV &c), that proportion looks set to increase, currently no widely available device supports HTML above version 3.2 and most of those devices have a screen resolution below 640x480 (many are as low as 320x240 or lower and may have other restrictions such as monochrome and/or low update speeds).
The upshot of this is that if you use any version of HTML above 3.2 or require specific screen sizes then you're potentially cutting out 60% of your audience. Sure design you pages to look good in the high end browsers but make damn sure that they degrade nicely for those people on IdTV.
Based on what I've learned working with databases the rough ranking for performance impact is something like:
Network Speed
Disk Speed
Processor Speed (and number of processors if multi processor)
Memory/Bus Speed
The last two are probably interchangable.
If you have your application on a separate box from your database then it might be a good investment to have a second network card in each to hook them directly together, maybe even go for a fiber link if you've got the money. If your database supports stored procedures it would probably be worth moving some of the processing within the database to minimise the amount of data being sent over the network.
Disk speed is particularly important in databases. If you're doing a lot more lookups than inserts/updates then you'll probably want to have lots of indexes, if you're doing more inserts/updates then you want to keep the number of indexes to a minimum. If possible you want to have indexes on a separate disk (separate disk controller if possible) to your tables. If performance is important avoid RAID 5, go for RAID0+1 (Striping and Mirroring). Loads of memory can help with disk speed bottle necks as it means that you can avoid swapping and paging and that you can have big database and disk caches so avoiding unnecessary disk reads and allowing writes to be scheduled for lulls. If your OS support asynchronous writes consider enabling that. If disk speed is your problem then choosing a language that lets you avoid dynamically loaded modules can be helpful (ideally you want to load each module once then leave it pinned in memory).
Processor speed is really the only one that links the language itself. Obviously anything that needs to be interpreted will take more cycles than something that will run native. C/C++ can be remarkably portable so long as you avoid implementation specific calls. Try to keep such calls to a minimum (only use them when you have to or where there is a significant performance advantage) and when you do use them try to keep them to isolated functions. Hopefully when you come to move to a different platform you'll just have to make some minor edits then recompile.
Not a lot you can do about Memory or Bus speed other than move to a different architecture.
It's not just people who have difficulty reading who sound out words you know. I don't have any particular difficulty with reading (I've managed to get a degree and a slew of other qualifications that require lots of reading, I also proof read and edit for a number of amateur writers) but I still occasionally sound out the odd word (especially if it's a name) to kinda get a feel for it.
Here in UK we've had 11 digit phone numbers (4 digit STD code plus 7 digit local number) for quite a while (went from 10 about a decade ago, had been 10 digits pretty much since the first direct dial long distance). This has happened in 3 waves. First the 01 group (London) was split into 0171 and 0181 then all the other long distance numbers had an extra 1 inserted after the initial 0 (021 (Birmingham) went to 0121 &c) and recently the London numbers were changed to 02X.
The driver behind this has been that when the phone numbers were first assigned most people didn't have a phone line but plans were put into place for a phone line in every home. So whilst we were in a situation where most homes had one line we were OK for numbers however now the norm is approaching 2 or more lines per home (phone line plus modem/fax line and/or phone line for the kids) plus a mobile (a frequently pager) for most individuals. Personally I live alone and have one land line (going to two soon so I can have a dedicated FAX/modem line), a mobile number and a pager number. In my sisters household they have 3 mobiles and a land line. We're running out of numbers and the simplest method to generate more is to add a digit to the STD code and use that to divide up the existing exchanges.
If you want to check out a UK number go to The Big Number and click the link for the Number Change Machine.
The reason for complaints is that each time the numbers have been changed businesses have had to reprint stationery with the new number and many claim to have lost business because people still tried to use the old number, despite being told in the press and directly by the suppliers, and went elsewhere when they couldn't get through. Also database have to be updated and validation code updated.
I am aware of a few wireless internet companies that are making a sucess of it. The common factor is they are all concentrating on delivering point to point access for businesses in city centre or campus environments. Basically they set up transponders at fixed points around the city/campus and you communicate via line of sight radio links.
I used to work for a company (Fraser Williams) which produced a couple of LIMS systems. One was called Centaur and was designed to manage data related to clinical testing of drugs on animals. The other was called Mensar and was designed to handle data related to sample management (eg where and when a sample was taken, what tests had been run and what the results of those tests were), it was originally sold in the water industry but has also found uses in other industries.
If you want more info your best bet to find out more would be to email them on info@pharma.fraser-williams.com.
We've all read Fantastic Voyage, and know the problems those guys had with antibodies... (not to base my theories on a scene in a novel or anything:)
I think that it's worth bearing in mind that the book was written by Issac Asimov, that's Professor Asimov of the UMass Department of Biochemistry. Whilst I'm not saying he wouldn't use a bit of artistic license I'm think he'd probably be closer to the facts, as known at the time, than certain random Sci-Fi authors who make it up as they go along.
IIRC in the book a major feature of the sub was that it could mimic the electric field produced by the antigens of the bodies own cells, this being how the immune system recognises self from non-self cells. Something like this would probably be needed if the nanites were going to spend long in the body (eg the classic Cyberpunk idea of nanites lying dormant until need to fix a wound type of thing), you could probably get away without it for short jobs as by the time the immune system had geared up enough to seriously impede the work the job would be finished. From what I recall of my biochemistry course it takes several hours at least for the immune system to fully respond, less time for re-infections.
Here in the UK a lot of local FE colleges (I guess Community college would be the equivelent in the US) run short (1-2 day) courses in the Internet and general basic IT (WP, spreadsheet etc, usually MS Office) for non-technical people quite cheaply. My mother, who is 66 and totally non-technical, went on one and is now totally into the Internet (shopping at Amazon, chatting in chatrooms on Yahoo and TalkCity, emailing everyone she's ever met with an email address &c).
It might be worth your while getting your rellos on one of them and setting them up with low end PCs that you've set up and locked down the OS (Linux booting straight into X, don't give them the root password and give them desktop icons for everything they need to run (including a shutdown script)?).
Enforce the collection via you favorite government agencies - say the IRS and the ATF for example (take your pick). Sufficiently high billing rates would make it rather unprofitable.
Unfortunately I guess that all this would do would be to get spammers to source their spam from countries where those organisations hold no sway and register in those countries as well. Well those that don't already do that.
I'm beginning to lean towards the shoot them in the face solution.
INT Early evening "Spam'R'Us" HQ. A multitude of "Evil Spammers (tm)" are gathered around a mahogany table plotting how to fill everyones email boxes with adverts for Viagra.
The window on left of shot suddenly shatters as two dozen masked Open Source Programmers wearing flak jackets emblazoned "Anti Spammer Legue (Direct Action Wing)" burst through.
Lead OSP : Spam this!
OSPs all open fire with large caliber fully automatic weapons which all bear the Penguin logo.
"Evil Spammers (tm)" die in all sorts of amusing ways.
On one of the other bulliten boards I'm on someone mentioned an interesting idea. It appears that there is a site Nader Trader where, if you want to vote for Nader but realise that he hasn't really got a chance in your state but Gore has, you can trade your Nader vote with a Gore voter in a state where Bush is a sure thing. Basically you agree to vote Gore and they agree to vote Nader so the total number of votes each gets remains the same but Gore votes are cast where they have the greatest effect on the final outcome.
Could be useful, assuming you prefer Gore to Bush.
Personally I live in the UK, however I figure with the 'joined-up-ness' of Western economics and culture the result of the US presidential elections will probably affect me. My preference leans to Gore.
. I quickly found that didn't like reading the book on screen,
I used to have difficulty reading long pieces off the screen. After I really got into fanfic, distributed via mailing lists, I got used to it and now have no problems. It's just a case of getting aclimated.
Now the only time I print something off is to read in bed (still not comfortable curling up with a laptop), to read on the bus or if I need to show it to someone who doesn't have a computer.
They could always marry someone from the marketing department.
After a few years they can go contracting and make so much money their spouse won't need to work, and could become a househusband/wife. This will have the effect of removing another emptyheaded waste of space from the labour market.
I thought CDs were only supposed to last 25 years or so before they became unplayable due to chemical deterioration of the disc. OK so they've got better these last few years and they would use special long lasting CDs but 50,000 years a pretty long shot.
Anyhow, given the problems they have stopping sattellites crashing into each other these days, what are the odds that the capsule would stay up there for 50,000 years in one piece. They'd have to put it at lunar type distances to have any real degree of surety that it would survive. Why not just put it on the moon?
Or how about making a load of them and sending them out into space in all directions attached to ion drives and Bussard Ram Jets so when we finally get around to colonising space we can pick them up as we go past in our FTL generation ships. Also keep a few copies down here and move them to the lastest recording medium as and when they come about.
BT is still in a real monopoly position in the UK, within the local loop (the copper running from exchange to peoples homes and offices) they have virtually no competition aside from a few cable TV companies who are still in the process of connecting people for their core business.
Later this year BT are supposed to be 'unbundling the local loop' but it's a case of I'll believe it when I see it!
Those unmetered services that are available (for example my local cable TV company (Telewest) run an unmetered ISP for thier cable TV subscribers) are so heavily over subscribed that they are having to stop taking on new accounts cos they physically can't get the hardware in place fast enough to service the demands.
To quote one of BTs own operators in a conversation with me in summer of 1992 "Well, it's [BT] not an honest company.".
I work in a multilingual environment, mainly Asian[1] language speakers. Just in the team I work on we have native speakers of Punjabi, Hindi, English, Urdu, Indonesian, Mandarin and Zulu. Even when people are talking in, say, Urdu, a good proportion of the words they use will be English simply because there either isn't an Urdu word or the English word more precisely expresses what they want to say.
I don't speak Japanese myself but I have been told by a number of people who do that a major problem with the language is that it varies widely according to the relative ranks of the speakers. It is entirely possible that someone who lives in the Japanese court would be totally unable to communicate with someone who lived at the lower ends of society as, although they both speak Japanese, the forms they use are totally different. Apparently when the Emperor read the surrender announcment at the end of World War Two when he had finished (because he spoke only High 'Court' Japanese) the radio stations then had to bradcasst a translation into 'Common' Japanese so that people would know what he had said.
Stephen
[1] That's Asian in the UK English sense of the word not the US meaning.
Personally I find it far easier to maintain good change conrol on Linux (or indeed an *nix) than on Microsoft systems.
Setting on *nix tend to be in plain text files which you can copy to maintain the old version then comment out the old setting and include comments around your change indication what was done, who did it and why it was done.
In NT settings often can only be changed through propietry GUI interfaces (eg regedit), cannot be copied off to back up versions easily and don't allow you to put comments in the file with the change.
The indication I got from a lot of the reports I read is that it's not just promotion of articles relating to the Nazi Party but the exhibition, display or sale of any items relating to Nazism.
Under this law, if taken to it's logical conclusion, the entirity of the matertial collected by places such as the Holocaust Museum and projects like Survivors of the Shoah would be illegal to display. Without such displays it is difficult to teach about the holocaust (people need solid objects to back up the words) and so knowledge will die. To paraphase a rather well know saying "Those who do not learn history are doomed to see the repitition of it's atrocities."
. As a FREE American, I hate the idea of any FOREIGN power claiming it has the right to make rules and laws in MY country.
Given that one of the major complaints that has repeatedly been made about the UN is how it is effectively dominated by the US and WIPO is part of the UN I find this statement quite amusing really.
It's a funny old world, really.
I've just discovered that stephenbooth.com has been registered by someone in Scotland and stephenbooth.co.uk has been registered by freenetname. Right! Whats WIPOs phone number? I'm gonna sue! Damn cyber squatters!
Stephen
Re:I really don't see how they could get sued.
on
Hacker Crackdown?
·
· Score: 1
Gun manufacturers, NRA, car manufacturers &c pay to get politicians elected. That's the only protection they need!
I do think that if this law was taken to it's logical conclusion that companies such as Microsoft could be liable for supplying the products used to write programs that are used for illegal purposes. Although they'd probably get off on a plea that most of the software produced is used for legal purposes.
But then what software can't be used for illegal purposes? I mean I can use my wordprocessing program to write a book or to plagerise one. With my CDR drive I can create a CD of my own work or a CD of someone elses. A spreadsheet can balance my chequebook or calculate the amount of uranium I need to destroy a large city. I can use my web browser to lookup the best way to wean a child or the best way to build a nuke.
I'm wondering if this new direction the law is taking could possibly be used to procecute those people who write the scripts and guides that script kiddies use to crack systems?
Personally, to solve the coders block problem, I go to the cinema for the day (there a a few cinemas around here that are open 11am to midnight or 1 am) and watch a load of films that keep my attention but require no real brain work (action movies are best). If that don't work I watch Buffy videos and/or read Buffy fanfic.
The next day I'm ready for work and usually have the solution nicely mapped out in my brain.
This is the same method the SF author Issac Asimov used (although he didn't have access to Buffy) to combat writers block.
Slashdot Mirror
People pulling down the wild feed via their dish has been around for ages. Whilst in the case of some shows it's only a few hours in some cases it can be days (eg Buffy was transmitted at 8pm on a Tuesday but the wild feed was 05:00 EST/EDT on Sunday giving fans a lead of 2.5 days).
The TV industry is well aware of the leaks to the extent that sometimes wildfeeds for particularly important (cliffhangery) episodes will be delayed to just hours before the show is due to air to ensure the suspense.
One the subject of Buffy finales being transmitted outside the US before within the US the case where this happened was the Season 3 (1999) finale "Graduation Day Part II" which was pulled because it depicted a bunch of High School students killing a giant snake with high explosives, flame throwers and battle axes, it was felt that in the aftermath of Columbine this might inspire violence in school.
Stephen
Whilst I'm sure that a lot of the legal/medical shows have real howlers of errors it's worth bearing in mind that they frequently employ medical/legal advisors to make sure that they're not too bad. Also you can buy books with titles like "Medical Procedures for writers" and "Police Procedures for writers" which layout how to accurately write about legal/medical matters.
I have yet to see a geek advisor creditied or a book shop carrying "Geek Procedures for writers".
Stephen
Garcia also said that downloading and installing the software over the net is too difficult for anyone over 30 years old to install.
I find that really insulting!
Stephen Booth (31 next month)
Something I recently came accross that some /.ers may find interesting or even useful. I was recently involved in a project to provide local council information over a web interface to the citizens. We consulted a number of suppliers omn this and one of the few common statements from all of them was that currently just over 60% of all web users use a device other than a computer to browse (eg WebTV, IdTV &c), that proportion looks set to increase, currently no widely available device supports HTML above version 3.2 and most of those devices have a screen resolution below 640x480 (many are as low as 320x240 or lower and may have other restrictions such as monochrome and/or low update speeds).
The upshot of this is that if you use any version of HTML above 3.2 or require specific screen sizes then you're potentially cutting out 60% of your audience. Sure design you pages to look good in the high end browsers but make damn sure that they degrade nicely for those people on IdTV.
Based on what I've learned working with databases the rough ranking for performance impact is something like:
The last two are probably interchangable.
If you have your application on a separate box from your database then it might be a good investment to have a second network card in each to hook them directly together, maybe even go for a fiber link if you've got the money. If your database supports stored procedures it would probably be worth moving some of the processing within the database to minimise the amount of data being sent over the network.
Disk speed is particularly important in databases. If you're doing a lot more lookups than inserts/updates then you'll probably want to have lots of indexes, if you're doing more inserts/updates then you want to keep the number of indexes to a minimum. If possible you want to have indexes on a separate disk (separate disk controller if possible) to your tables. If performance is important avoid RAID 5, go for RAID0+1 (Striping and Mirroring). Loads of memory can help with disk speed bottle necks as it means that you can avoid swapping and paging and that you can have big database and disk caches so avoiding unnecessary disk reads and allowing writes to be scheduled for lulls. If your OS support asynchronous writes consider enabling that. If disk speed is your problem then choosing a language that lets you avoid dynamically loaded modules can be helpful (ideally you want to load each module once then leave it pinned in memory).
Processor speed is really the only one that links the language itself. Obviously anything that needs to be interpreted will take more cycles than something that will run native. C/C++ can be remarkably portable so long as you avoid implementation specific calls. Try to keep such calls to a minimum (only use them when you have to or where there is a significant performance advantage) and when you do use them try to keep them to isolated functions. Hopefully when you come to move to a different platform you'll just have to make some minor edits then recompile.
Not a lot you can do about Memory or Bus speed other than move to a different architecture.
Stephen
It's not just people who have difficulty reading who sound out words you know. I don't have any particular difficulty with reading (I've managed to get a degree and a slew of other qualifications that require lots of reading, I also proof read and edit for a number of amateur writers) but I still occasionally sound out the odd word (especially if it's a name) to kinda get a feel for it.
Stephen
Here in UK we've had 11 digit phone numbers (4 digit STD code plus 7 digit local number) for quite a while (went from 10 about a decade ago, had been 10 digits pretty much since the first direct dial long distance). This has happened in 3 waves. First the 01 group (London) was split into 0171 and 0181 then all the other long distance numbers had an extra 1 inserted after the initial 0 (021 (Birmingham) went to 0121 &c) and recently the London numbers were changed to 02X.
The driver behind this has been that when the phone numbers were first assigned most people didn't have a phone line but plans were put into place for a phone line in every home. So whilst we were in a situation where most homes had one line we were OK for numbers however now the norm is approaching 2 or more lines per home (phone line plus modem/fax line and/or phone line for the kids) plus a mobile (a frequently pager) for most individuals. Personally I live alone and have one land line (going to two soon so I can have a dedicated FAX/modem line), a mobile number and a pager number. In my sisters household they have 3 mobiles and a land line. We're running out of numbers and the simplest method to generate more is to add a digit to the STD code and use that to divide up the existing exchanges.
If you want to check out a UK number go to The Big Number and click the link for the Number Change Machine.
The reason for complaints is that each time the numbers have been changed businesses have had to reprint stationery with the new number and many claim to have lost business because people still tried to use the old number, despite being told in the press and directly by the suppliers, and went elsewhere when they couldn't get through. Also database have to be updated and validation code updated.
Stephen
I am aware of a few wireless internet companies that are making a sucess of it. The common factor is they are all concentrating on delivering point to point access for businesses in city centre or campus environments. Basically they set up transponders at fixed points around the city /campus and you communicate via line of sight radio links.
One example is Highway OneStephen
I used to work for a company (Fraser Williams) which produced a couple of LIMS systems. One was called Centaur and was designed to manage data related to clinical testing of drugs on animals. The other was called Mensar and was designed to handle data related to sample management (eg where and when a sample was taken, what tests had been run and what the results of those tests were), it was originally sold in the water industry but has also found uses in other industries.
If you want more info your best bet to find out more would be to email them on info@pharma.fraser-williams.com.
Stephen
We've all read Fantastic Voyage, and know the problems those guys had with antibodies... (not to base my theories on a scene in a novel or anything:)
I think that it's worth bearing in mind that the book was written by Issac Asimov, that's Professor Asimov of the UMass Department of Biochemistry. Whilst I'm not saying he wouldn't use a bit of artistic license I'm think he'd probably be closer to the facts, as known at the time, than certain random Sci-Fi authors who make it up as they go along.
IIRC in the book a major feature of the sub was that it could mimic the electric field produced by the antigens of the bodies own cells, this being how the immune system recognises self from non-self cells. Something like this would probably be needed if the nanites were going to spend long in the body (eg the classic Cyberpunk idea of nanites lying dormant until need to fix a wound type of thing), you could probably get away without it for short jobs as by the time the immune system had geared up enough to seriously impede the work the job would be finished. From what I recall of my biochemistry course it takes several hours at least for the immune system to fully respond, less time for re-infections.
Stephen
Here in the UK a lot of local FE colleges (I guess Community college would be the equivelent in the US) run short (1-2 day) courses in the Internet and general basic IT (WP, spreadsheet etc, usually MS Office) for non-technical people quite cheaply. My mother, who is 66 and totally non-technical, went on one and is now totally into the Internet (shopping at Amazon, chatting in chatrooms on Yahoo and TalkCity, emailing everyone she's ever met with an email address &c).
It might be worth your while getting your rellos on one of them and setting them up with low end PCs that you've set up and locked down the OS (Linux booting straight into X, don't give them the root password and give them desktop icons for everything they need to run (including a shutdown script)?).
Stephen
Enforce the collection via you favorite government agencies - say the IRS and the ATF for example (take your pick). Sufficiently high billing rates would make it rather unprofitable.
Unfortunately I guess that all this would do would be to get spammers to source their spam from countries where those organisations hold no sway and register in those countries as well. Well those that don't already do that.
I'm beginning to lean towards the shoot them in the face solution.
StephenINT Early evening "Spam'R'Us" HQ. A multitude of "Evil Spammers (tm)" are gathered around a mahogany table plotting how to fill everyones email boxes with adverts for Viagra.
The window on left of shot suddenly shatters as two dozen masked Open Source Programmers wearing flak jackets emblazoned "Anti Spammer Legue (Direct Action Wing)" burst through.
Lead OSP : Spam this!
OSPs all open fire with large caliber fully automatic weapons which all bear the Penguin logo.
"Evil Spammers (tm)" die in all sorts of amusing ways.
On one of the other bulliten boards I'm on someone mentioned an interesting idea. It appears that there is a site Nader Trader where, if you want to vote for Nader but realise that he hasn't really got a chance in your state but Gore has, you can trade your Nader vote with a Gore voter in a state where Bush is a sure thing. Basically you agree to vote Gore and they agree to vote Nader so the total number of votes each gets remains the same but Gore votes are cast where they have the greatest effect on the final outcome.
Could be useful, assuming you prefer Gore to Bush.
Personally I live in the UK, however I figure with the 'joined-up-ness' of Western economics and culture the result of the US presidential elections will probably affect me. My preference leans to Gore.
Stephen
. I quickly found that didn't like reading the book on screen,
I used to have difficulty reading long pieces off the screen. After I really got into fanfic, distributed via mailing lists, I got used to it and now have no problems. It's just a case of getting aclimated.
Now the only time I print something off is to read in bed (still not comfortable curling up with a laptop), to read on the bus or if I need to show it to someone who doesn't have a computer.
Stephen
They could always marry someone from the marketing department.
After a few years they can go contracting and make so much money their spouse won't need to work, and could become a househusband/wife. This will have the effect of removing another emptyheaded waste of space from the labour market.
Just a thought.
Stephen
I put Scotch (Speyside, Safeways own brand 12 year old single malt scotch) in tea and/or coffee so what does that mean? Do they cancel each other out?
IMHO the main things a geek house needs is a very, very fat pipe to the Inet and a door knocker in the shape of Tux.
Stephen
I thought CDs were only supposed to last 25 years or so before they became unplayable due to chemical deterioration of the disc. OK so they've got better these last few years and they would use special long lasting CDs but 50,000 years a pretty long shot.
Anyhow, given the problems they have stopping sattellites crashing into each other these days, what are the odds that the capsule would stay up there for 50,000 years in one piece. They'd have to put it at lunar type distances to have any real degree of surety that it would survive. Why not just put it on the moon?
Or how about making a load of them and sending them out into space in all directions attached to ion drives and Bussard Ram Jets so when we finally get around to colonising space we can pick them up as we go past in our FTL generation ships. Also keep a few copies down here and move them to the lastest recording medium as and when they come about.
Stephen
BT is still in a real monopoly position in the UK, within the local loop (the copper running from exchange to peoples homes and offices) they have virtually no competition aside from a few cable TV companies who are still in the process of connecting people for their core business.
Later this year BT are supposed to be 'unbundling the local loop' but it's a case of I'll believe it when I see it!
Those unmetered services that are available (for example my local cable TV company (Telewest) run an unmetered ISP for thier cable TV subscribers) are so heavily over subscribed that they are having to stop taking on new accounts cos they physically can't get the hardware in place fast enough to service the demands.
To quote one of BTs own operators in a conversation with me in summer of 1992 "Well, it's [BT] not an honest company.".
Stephen
Actually he's a sculptor.
Some friends and I have looked at his work and feel that it has little merit.
Stephen
I work in a multilingual environment, mainly Asian[1] language speakers. Just in the team I work on we have native speakers of Punjabi, Hindi, English, Urdu, Indonesian, Mandarin and Zulu. Even when people are talking in, say, Urdu, a good proportion of the words they use will be English simply because there either isn't an Urdu word or the English word more precisely expresses what they want to say.
I don't speak Japanese myself but I have been told by a number of people who do that a major problem with the language is that it varies widely according to the relative ranks of the speakers. It is entirely possible that someone who lives in the Japanese court would be totally unable to communicate with someone who lived at the lower ends of society as, although they both speak Japanese, the forms they use are totally different. Apparently when the Emperor read the surrender announcment at the end of World War Two when he had finished (because he spoke only High 'Court' Japanese) the radio stations then had to bradcasst a translation into 'Common' Japanese so that people would know what he had said.
Stephen
[1] That's Asian in the UK English sense of the word not the US meaning.
Personally I find it far easier to maintain good change conrol on Linux (or indeed an *nix) than on Microsoft systems.
Setting on *nix tend to be in plain text files which you can copy to maintain the old version then comment out the old setting and include comments around your change indication what was done, who did it and why it was done.
In NT settings often can only be changed through propietry GUI interfaces (eg regedit), cannot be copied off to back up versions easily and don't allow you to put comments in the file with the change.
Stephen
The indication I got from a lot of the reports I read is that it's not just promotion of articles relating to the Nazi Party but the exhibition, display or sale of any items relating to Nazism.
Under this law, if taken to it's logical conclusion, the entirity of the matertial collected by places such as the Holocaust Museum and projects like Survivors of the Shoah would be illegal to display. Without such displays it is difficult to teach about the holocaust (people need solid objects to back up the words) and so knowledge will die. To paraphase a rather well know saying "Those who do not learn history are doomed to see the repitition of it's atrocities."
Stephen
. As a FREE American, I hate the idea of any FOREIGN power claiming it has the right to make rules and laws in MY country.
Given that one of the major complaints that has repeatedly been made about the UN is how it is effectively dominated by the US and WIPO is part of the UN I find this statement quite amusing really.
It's a funny old world, really.
I've just discovered that stephenbooth.com has been registered by someone in Scotland and stephenbooth.co.uk has been registered by freenetname. Right! Whats WIPOs phone number? I'm gonna sue! Damn cyber squatters!
Stephen
Gun manufacturers, NRA, car manufacturers &c pay to get politicians elected. That's the only protection they need!
I do think that if this law was taken to it's logical conclusion that companies such as Microsoft could be liable for supplying the products used to write programs that are used for illegal purposes. Although they'd probably get off on a plea that most of the software produced is used for legal purposes.
But then what software can't be used for illegal purposes? I mean I can use my wordprocessing program to write a book or to plagerise one. With my CDR drive I can create a CD of my own work or a CD of someone elses. A spreadsheet can balance my chequebook or calculate the amount of uranium I need to destroy a large city. I can use my web browser to lookup the best way to wean a child or the best way to build a nuke.
I'm wondering if this new direction the law is taking could possibly be used to procecute those people who write the scripts and guides that script kiddies use to crack systems?
Stephen
Personally, to solve the coders block problem, I go to the cinema for the day (there a a few cinemas around here that are open 11am to midnight or 1 am) and watch a load of films that keep my attention but require no real brain work (action movies are best). If that don't work I watch Buffy videos and/or read Buffy fanfic.
The next day I'm ready for work and usually have the solution nicely mapped out in my brain.
This is the same method the SF author Issac Asimov used (although he didn't have access to Buffy) to combat writers block.
Stephen