They don't "sweep an area", they park their vans outside houses which are in their database as not having a license around the time the residents are coming home from work. I'm not sure how technically effective the vans are, probably just more scare tactics to prompt you into getting a license.
especially when DVDs (which arguably contain much more content)
As you say, it is arguable. Personally, I'd probably value CDs more highly, as I tend to listen to a CD I like a lot hundreds of times, while a DVD I like might get watched 10 times at most. I understand that a lot more goes into producing the movie, and I enjoy movies a lot, but there is only so many times you can watch a movie before you know the script off by heart and at that point there doesn't seem much point anymore. Music is different in that some songs can grow on you after you become more familiar with them, which is the beauty of having CDs that are albums rather than individual MP3 tracks that you downloaded for 99c each. Of course its nice to be able to make up a compilation CD, or MP3 playlist once you've familiarised yourself with an album, but its still nice to go back and listen to the full thing every now and then to see if your preferences have changed.
my last purchase was an import CD of early 20th century recordings of Chinese folk music, to give you some idea....If you like listening to trance or house music, you have been overflowing in DRM-free purchase options for years already. If you like alternative rock (whatever that means exactly) or acid jazz, you're in okay shape. Classical, the selection starts to get pretty limited.
So basically what you are saying is that the copyright system is actually working the wrong way around at the moment? Early 20th century recordings and Classical music by composers who have been dead for years should be out of copyright by now, and available to all. But its the cutting edge stuff by new artists that's freely available, and the older stuff and formula pop music that the record companies cling to like their life depended on it. It looks to me like the record companies aren't going to last much longer, and as much as they'd like to think otherwise, it isn't piracy that's killing them, its their own lack of keeping up with the times, not just with the technology, but with the music.
If Google has a great app, they can send it to Tmobile for testing and approval.
I don't think you understand how approval processes work. You don't send your great app, you send a check for $20,000. Approvals for mobile phone companies are just another revenue stream, like every other service they offer.
A lossless format is one which does not deteriorate in quality with subsequent generations of reencoding. 44.1kHz 16 bit stereo need not be the baseline.
You can get CFs that unplug from the ballast - they are marketed as lasting 2-3 bulbs before you have to replace the ballast as well, so the savings and wastage are not all that great.
My brother was once mistakenly charged $12,000,000 on his debit card, putting him $11,999,000 in overdraft. This happened on a Friday afternoon. The following week, he spent 3 days trying to find someone at the bank with sufficient authority to reverse the charge, and a further couple of days trying to get the $20,000 in interest charges credited back (which did not happen automatically after they reversed the $12mil). The merchant in this case was the bank itself - he had ordered a new customised card, which was supposed to have a $12 fee. So I'd keep fighting for that $2456 if I was you - try small claims court. This sort of thing does happen, and it often is the bank/credit card company's fault, especially when it well exceeds the limits that are supposed to protect the customer from silly charges.
My understanding is that the merchant has always been responsible for "card not present" transactions, but for card present transactions the bank and/or credit card company took responsibility (and passed it on to the customer if they were slow reporting their card as stolen etc). So the only change is that POS retailers are now being held responsible, which is a good thing, because they never check signatures properly anyway.
That sounds similar to the situation in the UK. To get anything other than the low end CF bulbs, you have to shop online, or be lucky enough to live near one of the specialist stores that carries a full range. I think if the mainstream stores carried a wider range, and made the running costs of incandescent and fluorescent bulbs clear, CFs would fly off shelves instead of being shoved into a corner where only the "greenies" go.
I used to be able to hear a high pitched noise from most CRTs. It used to get to me as a teenager when I was trying to do homework in my room and someone was watching TV in the lounge. I don't know if its because TVs got quieter, or my hearing has deteriorated, but I haven't noticed it so much in the last few years. Can you sense LCD and plasma TVs, or just CRTs? If it's just CRTs, maybe you are hearing the same noise, perhaps subconsciously.
Decorative CF bulbs are available, just noone stocks them. The UK government has been making noises about getting people switched to CF, but if you go into any high street store that sells bulbs, the only CFs you can get are the standard ugly double U bulbs that are too long for most fittings. Even the big DIY stores only carry those and the slightly shorter versions (which are still too long to replace the candle bulbs in my fittings). Micro-spirals, decorative candles, GU10 replacements and a whole range of other CF bulbs are really hard to get hold of - short of ordering online unseen. If shops were forced to carry a greater range of them, we might start to see them fly off shelves. The other thing I've found frustrating is getting anything other than the "warm" CFs, which are supposed to be closer to incandescent in color, but make everything look yellow, and make skin look unnatural.
I agree that some choices are a bit hidden in GConf
That's the way it should be IMHO. Avoid confusing the less technical users by putting only the essential configuration options in the GUI, but leave the more advanced configuration options available for advanced users who are capable of using GConf. My understanding of the article's specific example is that Linus found that double-clicks on the title-bar were not configurable, even through GConf. Some people like a double-click to "roll up" the window into just the titlebar, others prefer the Windows behaviour of maximising the Window, so it is perfectly understandable for Linus to want a configuration option for this. This is one of those situations where the Gnome team can keep their simple interface, and please the power users at the same time, by adding a GConf-only option.
For people not in the US, who are curious to see if they're patched or have a reason to need US timezone support, try prefixing those commands with "TZ=EST5EDT ".
If it's already light when most people wake up in the morning, then there is energy to be saved by bringing Daylight Savings forward. Its all about social engineering, to get people making the most of the daylight hours. The vast majority of people in today's society are ruled by the clock, not by their body's natural response to light, so it will have an effect.
Most people running Exchange 5.5 are going to be running NT4. Is there an official patch for that, or do the admins have to poke about in the registry themselves?
For business users, 2000 was just a prettier shell on top of NT4, just like XP and Vista. For Home users, XP was an upgrade from ME/98, so was significant for that reason.
Slashdot Mirror
They don't "sweep an area", they park their vans outside houses which are in their database as not having a license around the time the residents are coming home from work. I'm not sure how technically effective the vans are, probably just more scare tactics to prompt you into getting a license.
especially when DVDs (which arguably contain much more content)
As you say, it is arguable. Personally, I'd probably value CDs more highly, as I tend to listen to a CD I like a lot hundreds of times, while a DVD I like might get watched 10 times at most. I understand that a lot more goes into producing the movie, and I enjoy movies a lot, but there is only so many times you can watch a movie before you know the script off by heart and at that point there doesn't seem much point anymore. Music is different in that some songs can grow on you after you become more familiar with them, which is the beauty of having CDs that are albums rather than individual MP3 tracks that you downloaded for 99c each. Of course its nice to be able to make up a compilation CD, or MP3 playlist once you've familiarised yourself with an album, but its still nice to go back and listen to the full thing every now and then to see if your preferences have changed.
my last purchase was an import CD of early 20th century recordings of Chinese folk music, to give you some idea....If you like listening to trance or house music, you have been overflowing in DRM-free purchase options for years already. If you like alternative rock (whatever that means exactly) or acid jazz, you're in okay shape. Classical, the selection starts to get pretty limited.
So basically what you are saying is that the copyright system is actually working the wrong way around at the moment? Early 20th century recordings and Classical music by composers who have been dead for years should be out of copyright by now, and available to all. But its the cutting edge stuff by new artists that's freely available, and the older stuff and formula pop music that the record companies cling to like their life depended on it. It looks to me like the record companies aren't going to last much longer, and as much as they'd like to think otherwise, it isn't piracy that's killing them, its their own lack of keeping up with the times, not just with the technology, but with the music.
Why would you pay $200 to get out of a contract where the other party has not met the terms agreed on?
If Google has a great app, they can send it to Tmobile for testing and approval.
I don't think you understand how approval processes work. You don't send your great app, you send a check for $20,000. Approvals for mobile phone companies are just another revenue stream, like every other service they offer.
Beware captcha's and other form fields where you're forced to type a specific word or phrase.
A lossless format is one which does not deteriorate in quality with subsequent generations of reencoding. 44.1kHz 16 bit stereo need not be the baseline.
Why would I pay twice for something I can rip from my (wifes') CD
Are your wives all sharing that one CD? Surely that is against the license terms.
They actually test stuff? I thought it was just your standard marketing program:
They own one of the 5 MUXes, and have a large shareholding in ITV, who own another.
You can get CFs that unplug from the ballast - they are marketed as lasting 2-3 bulbs before you have to replace the ballast as well, so the savings and wastage are not all that great.
My brother was once mistakenly charged $12,000,000 on his debit card, putting him $11,999,000 in overdraft. This happened on a Friday afternoon. The following week, he spent 3 days trying to find someone at the bank with sufficient authority to reverse the charge, and a further couple of days trying to get the $20,000 in interest charges credited back (which did not happen automatically after they reversed the $12mil). The merchant in this case was the bank itself - he had ordered a new customised card, which was supposed to have a $12 fee. So I'd keep fighting for that $2456 if I was you - try small claims court. This sort of thing does happen, and it often is the bank/credit card company's fault, especially when it well exceeds the limits that are supposed to protect the customer from silly charges.
My understanding is that the merchant has always been responsible for "card not present" transactions, but for card present transactions the bank and/or credit card company took responsibility (and passed it on to the customer if they were slow reporting their card as stolen etc). So the only change is that POS retailers are now being held responsible, which is a good thing, because they never check signatures properly anyway.
That sounds similar to the situation in the UK. To get anything other than the low end CF bulbs, you have to shop online, or be lucky enough to live near one of the specialist stores that carries a full range. I think if the mainstream stores carried a wider range, and made the running costs of incandescent and fluorescent bulbs clear, CFs would fly off shelves instead of being shoved into a corner where only the "greenies" go.
I used to be able to hear a high pitched noise from most CRTs. It used to get to me as a teenager when I was trying to do homework in my room and someone was watching TV in the lounge. I don't know if its because TVs got quieter, or my hearing has deteriorated, but I haven't noticed it so much in the last few years. Can you sense LCD and plasma TVs, or just CRTs? If it's just CRTs, maybe you are hearing the same noise, perhaps subconsciously.
Decorative CF bulbs are available, just noone stocks them. The UK government has been making noises about getting people switched to CF, but if you go into any high street store that sells bulbs, the only CFs you can get are the standard ugly double U bulbs that are too long for most fittings. Even the big DIY stores only carry those and the slightly shorter versions (which are still too long to replace the candle bulbs in my fittings). Micro-spirals, decorative candles, GU10 replacements and a whole range of other CF bulbs are really hard to get hold of - short of ordering online unseen. If shops were forced to carry a greater range of them, we might start to see them fly off shelves. The other thing I've found frustrating is getting anything other than the "warm" CFs, which are supposed to be closer to incandescent in color, but make everything look yellow, and make skin look unnatural.
This site is just sooooooo US-Centric!
That's a long standing bug in slashcode. Though I did think they'd made a special case for the Euro at the same time as they did for £
I agree that some choices are a bit hidden in GConf
That's the way it should be IMHO. Avoid confusing the less technical users by putting only the essential configuration options in the GUI, but leave the more advanced configuration options available for advanced users who are capable of using GConf. My understanding of the article's specific example is that Linus found that double-clicks on the title-bar were not configurable, even through GConf. Some people like a double-click to "roll up" the window into just the titlebar, others prefer the Windows behaviour of maximising the Window, so it is perfectly understandable for Linus to want a configuration option for this. This is one of those situations where the Gnome team can keep their simple interface, and please the power users at the same time, by adding a GConf-only option.
Administrators maybe, most users don't care about Active Directory.
Why does Windows not run UTC on the CMOS clock?
It is possible to do so on NT derived system, but backwards compatibility with DOS has always held Microsoft back from making it the default.
For people not in the US, who are curious to see if they're patched or have a reason to need US timezone support, try prefixing those commands with "TZ=EST5EDT ".
If it's already light when most people wake up in the morning, then there is energy to be saved by bringing Daylight Savings forward. Its all about social engineering, to get people making the most of the daylight hours. The vast majority of people in today's society are ruled by the clock, not by their body's natural response to light, so it will have an effect.
Most people running Exchange 5.5 are going to be running NT4. Is there an official patch for that, or do the admins have to poke about in the registry themselves?
"apt-get upgrade" on the other hand, is not more difficult. Updating your timezone file by hand is comparable to editing the registry.
For business users, 2000 was just a prettier shell on top of NT4, just like XP and Vista. For Home users, XP was an upgrade from ME/98, so was significant for that reason.