I seem to remember that it had "Presented by" Alfred Hitchcock on the bottom right of the cover - he wrote a preface or something and someone else wrote it....
The series was envisaged and written by Robert Arthur who presented the idea for endorsing by Alfred Hitchcock. After his death, further books were written by other authors, and after AH's death the character of Hector Sebastian was written in to fill the gap.
I recently read up on them after reading them when I was younger, some excellent fan sites are here, here and here.
They would have to solve the problem of slowing down the person from the re-entry speed of 30,000mph without burning up. The shuttle needs thousands of ceramic tiles to do this, I'd like to see the equivalent suit!
Common mistake. In the UK if you operate a TV set or other device which recieves and decodes TV signals Orignating from the UK you have to have a TV licence.
Common mistake. You need a TV licence if you have equipment capable of receiving television signals and it is used for that purpose, eg. a detuned TV used for watching pre-recorded video cassetes or closed circuit televison would not require one. A televison monitor (not necessarily with a UHF tuner) connected to a satellite receiver pointing at a satellite which is not uplinked to from the UK and used for watching, say, high quality Swedish erotica would still require one.
Yes, and they were sold in stores a while back. I am not sure what makes this iPod attachment illegal to *sell* though - you can buy pre-built and kit FM transmitters from many places. The pirate stations tend to make their own equipment because it gets seized so often. They usually have the transmitter on a tower block (wedged down a drain using a car jack is a popular one) and link to it by a microwave link made from satellite dish parts.
One amusing trick the pirate stations are doing now is transmissind the RDS TA (Traffic Announcement) tag permanently. Because most people don't know how to turn TA off, or that they even had it on, they have to listen to your station! (well, unless they know where the "off" button is)
"Three hundred forty undecillion, two hundred eighty-two decillion, three hundred sixty-six nonillion, nine hundred twenty octillion, nine hundred thirty-eight septillion, four hundred sixty-three sextillion, four hundred sixty-three quintillion, three hundred seventy-four quadrillion, six hundred seven trillion, four hundred thirty-one billion, seven hundred sixty-eight million, two hundred eleven thousand, four hundred fifty-six IP addresses are enough for any universe"
If it now turns out that incomplete DNA can give a false postive then this should be carefully studied. Next time they will no that the DNA shows that "it is either him or a close relative". THen you can start talking to close relatives and see if they have an alibi.
There have been numerous cases of incorrect DNA matches - one recently in the UK (the Milly Dowler case) where a DNA sample taken from a coffee mug at the scene of an unrelated church burglary matched evidence found on/near the murdered girl's body. After testing many people from the area the police quietly dropped that part of their investigation.
Another recent murder investigation in Germany - the perfect match was in a maximum security prison at the time.
In the UK there are supposed to be many "double" profiles but no investigation into whether they are one person who has given a false name, or two people who happen to produce an identical DNA fingerprint yet are *not* twins.
In the UK the machines must pay out a certain amount (78% IIRC) but this can be averaged over a period of time. "Streaks" can be programmed in which the machine will pay out a lot of money in a short period. There is a lot of information at this site.
People already have made devices that they claim give free PPV on Sky - it's a 9V battery and a couple of diodes that fake a phone line. Like the cable product everything appears to go fine until you reach the credit limit and then it stops working, and again, you either never plug it into the phone line again or pay up. Sweet!
Cracking the challenge/response would be very difficult - if it's even 1/2 way as secure as the MediaGuard encryption nobody will get even close. MediaGuard is *very* secure.
Banks don't lose out - they merely do a chargeback to the merchant, and unless they can prove the transaction was authorised they are the ones that lose the money. Since most fraud is mail-order or uses signatures clearly nothing like the one on the card 99% of the time they lose out.
It was made over several nights - the frame was spotted by a farm-hand one day and it appeared the following day.
It is only a short drive from where I live and I visited it on the holiday weekend - the horizontal lines are indeed *extremely* straight - they were definately made with the help of a laser sighting device, however they are very cheaply available (a few hundred pounds) and don't need a lot of skill to operate. They found a small electronic "sighting device" at the scene, though I haven't seen any photos of what it was.
Oh, on the "farmers loss" situation - the enthusiasts had a whip-round and paid him to cut around the formation, and he had a donation box (£2/person) at the gate, I reckon he made more on the crop circle than the entire field has made him in 10 years.
this formation is by the best "public" crop circle makers, and it doesn't even come close to the skill in the Crabwood "3D" style formation.
There are plenty of complete systems out there, and though this person doesn't have the discs there were several thousand copies made, and some are still in good working order (eg. Science Museum). The problem is getting it into a version that can be distributed today on CD-ROM, impossible because of the archaic filesystem which, while revolutionary, has little in common with modern filesystems.
Slashdot Mirror
Cool! "Prescanned for your convenience"
They even overlaid "SPECIMEN" as a text layer rather than altering the image.
The series was envisaged and written by Robert Arthur who presented the idea for endorsing by Alfred Hitchcock. After his death, further books were written by other authors, and after AH's death the character of Hector Sebastian was written in to fill the gap.
I recently read up on them after reading them when I was younger, some excellent fan sites are here, here and here.
Gareth
They would have to solve the problem of slowing down the person from the re-entry speed of 30,000mph without burning up. The shuttle needs thousands of ceramic tiles to do this, I'd like to see the equivalent suit!
Gareth
This has happened to the UK government several times. The latter link shows whose sticky fingers were on the infamous "dodgy dossier".
Gareth
There's a nice review by a fan in the UK here - he read about it and got a director of the company brought one to round for him to play with.
We can hope that the mass-production of Segway (it it ever happens!) will help reduce the production part of the price tag.
Gareth
All tinfoil hats will have an RFID soon - the government will KNOW you have bought one!!
When it was made, the C5 made some breakthroughs - for instance the body was the largest injection moudling ever and designed by Lotus.
There are some interesting photos here. Based on those I can completely believe that the datacenter is somewhat less than state-of-the-art.
I heard that there was full-time armed guards at Sealand - is this some ex-army pensioner with a 12-bore then?
Gareth
Common mistake. You need a TV licence if you have equipment capable of receiving television signals and it is used for that purpose, eg. a detuned TV used for watching pre-recorded video cassetes or closed circuit televison would not require one. A televison monitor (not necessarily with a UHF tuner) connected to a satellite receiver pointing at a satellite which is not uplinked to from the UK and used for watching, say, high quality Swedish erotica would still require one.
Gareth
Yes, and they were sold in stores a while back. I am not sure what makes this iPod attachment illegal to *sell* though - you can buy pre-built and kit FM transmitters from many places. The pirate stations tend to make their own equipment because it gets seized so often. They usually have the transmitter on a tower block (wedged down a drain using a car jack is a popular one) and link to it by a microwave link made from satellite dish parts.
One amusing trick the pirate stations are doing now is transmissind the RDS TA (Traffic Announcement) tag permanently. Because most people don't know how to turn TA off, or that they even had it on, they have to listen to your station! (well, unless they know where the "off" button is)
Gareth
"Three hundred forty undecillion,
two hundred eighty-two decillion,
three hundred sixty-six nonillion,
nine hundred twenty octillion,
nine hundred thirty-eight septillion,
four hundred sixty-three sextillion,
four hundred sixty-three quintillion,
three hundred seventy-four quadrillion,
six hundred seven trillion,
four hundred thirty-one billion,
seven hundred sixty-eight million,
two hundred eleven thousand,
four hundred fifty-six IP addresses are
enough for any universe"
If it now turns out that incomplete DNA can give a false postive then this should be carefully studied. Next time they will no that the DNA shows that "it is either him or a close relative". THen you can start talking to close relatives and see if they have an alibi.
There have been numerous cases of incorrect DNA matches - one recently in the UK (the Milly Dowler case) where a DNA sample taken from a coffee mug at the scene of an unrelated church burglary matched evidence found on/near the murdered girl's body. After testing many people from the area the police quietly dropped that part of their investigation.
Another recent murder investigation in Germany - the perfect match was in a maximum security prison at the time.
In the UK there are supposed to be many "double" profiles but no investigation into whether they are one person who has given a false name, or two people who happen to produce an identical DNA fingerprint yet are *not* twins.
Gareth
In the UK the machines must pay out a certain amount (78% IIRC) but this can be averaged over a period of time. "Streaks" can be programmed in which the machine will pay out a lot of money in a short period. There is a lot of information at this site.
Gareth
Considering it uses regular methanol I imagine anybody could sell refills, unless they patent the refilling system or something silly.
Gareth
Ah, you've been reading about the guilt-free Christmas turkey.
And you can see the thread here.
Gareth
http://www.capita.co.uk/
(logo with strapline "Your Professional Support Services Resource")
"This website is currently undergoing essential maintenance.
Please call back later."
People already have made devices that they claim give free PPV on Sky - it's a 9V battery and a couple of diodes that fake a phone line. Like the cable product everything appears to go fine until you reach the credit limit and then it stops working, and again, you either never plug it into the phone line again or pay up. Sweet!
Cracking the challenge/response would be very difficult - if it's even 1/2 way as secure as the MediaGuard encryption nobody will get even close. MediaGuard is *very* secure.
Gareth
You can even download most of the data used on the site and query it using one of many front ends available.
Gareth
banks losing billions a year to fraud...
Banks don't lose out - they merely do a chargeback to the merchant, and unless they can prove the transaction was authorised they are the ones that lose the money. Since most fraud is mail-order or uses signatures clearly nothing like the one on the card 99% of the time they lose out.
Gareth
It was made over several nights - the frame was spotted by a farm-hand one day and it appeared the following day.
It is only a short drive from where I live and I visited it on the holiday weekend - the horizontal lines are indeed *extremely* straight - they were definately made with the help of a laser sighting device, however they are very cheaply available (a few hundred pounds) and don't need a lot of skill to operate. They found a small electronic "sighting device" at the scene, though I haven't seen any photos of what it was.
Oh, on the "farmers loss" situation - the enthusiasts had a whip-round and paid him to cut around the formation, and he had a donation box (£2/person) at the gate, I reckon he made more on the crop circle than the entire field has made him in 10 years.
this formation is by the best "public" crop circle makers, and it doesn't even come close to the skill in the Crabwood "3D" style formation.
Gareth
Indeed I believe the server is located 3 miles off Felixstowe (UK) at HavenCo, metioned here several times before.
Gareth
Try alt.binaries.emulators.nintendo through your favourite binary news archive (must go back to at least 6th Dec)
Gareth
There are plenty of complete systems out there, and though this person doesn't have the discs there were several thousand copies made, and some are still in good working order (eg. Science Museum). The problem is getting it into a version that can be distributed today on CD-ROM, impossible because of the archaic filesystem which, while revolutionary, has little in common with modern filesystems.
Gareth
You can download almost every version of Elite released here (including many not released).
To emulate a BBC Micro I recommend BeebEm. To keep "in theme" for today, there's even a PS2 version!
Gareth