Reminds me of the time I had an argument in Sainsburys when I bought a freeview box
I bought a TV from Currys, having been over this before. It went like this Shop: you will need to fill in this tv license form. Me: OK, postcode is SW1A2AA Shop (reading from screen): Prime Minister and first lor.... Me: Yup
I do have a license, but I'm blowed if I'm going to be bullied into giving away personal details and marketing information.
Arguably, I couldn't even watch YouTube - it's not something thats been tested yet, but I bet it will one day.
It's not a broadcast, so you don't need a license. Same as if your neighbour tapes TV and give you a copy.
You need one if it's live, or almost live (i.e. you feed it though a delay line, like a PAL decoder, or an MPEG decoder). You may be breaching some form of copyright law though.
There's a saying here in the US that derives from an early Supreme Court case, and it says "the power to tax is the power to destroy". Now, think about that for a moment. Are you comfortable giving the government power to destroy television and/or radio communications?
They do have the power in the UK, and I'm fairly sure they do in the U.S. To broadcast you need a government aprooved license.
BBC broadcasts on shortwave while their nation is occupied by the Axis during World War II,
You don't need a license to recevie transmissions that originated abroad (i.e. shortwave propaganda from a country you're at war with), however you're probably breaking one of many other laws.
their new iPlayer looks set to to revolutionise the way TV is watched.
Yes, the old way was: "Anyone with a standard TV that receives PAL signals can watch our broadcasts, anyone without can make their own pal decoder, it's not hard"
The new way is: "Anyone that has a Sony TV can watch our broadcasts, if you have a Phillips, tough. Don't even think about making your own TV, but then with the state of engineering in the UK who would want to?"
The new way also involves large a amount of incentive passing between microsoft and Ashly Highfield (either swish sales talk or something mroe insideous)
If it requires anything more complex than "double click on setup.exe" or "double click on the program icon when you save it"
Actaully it's: 1) Go to shop and buy software or 1) Find website of software, find download page, save it locally, find the server 2) double click icon 3) Click next/next/next
In Linux it's 1) Click "Add new software" 2) Select the software you want 3) Press install
Unless youre a system administrator, programmer, or uber-geek, this is probably the only reference source you'll need to learn Microsofts Vista."
My Fiancee is not a system administrator, programmer, or uber-geek. She can use both my linux laptops, and mythtv, without any need for a manual. What is in an operating system that needs a manual? If Vista needs a manual, why doesn't it come with it? I'm sure that Office 4.3 came with thousands of pages of printed material, but now you drop a few hundered quid on a shiny DVD, put it in, and then are expected to pay mroe for a book!
It is much cheaper to invest in lobbying against software patenting. Europe tells a lesson here. It is just a matter of ressources. Support the anti-softpatent movement. It's still an uphill battle. We have to win every time, with limited resources. They have to win once, with unlimited resources.
The OP was hung up on power. Obviously a bomb exploding in your apps room will knock out your database, that's where you use something like a ndb to spread your database over multiple locations
So I plan to hit the used computer store and garage sale market hard now that Vista has come out. I'll be able to finally put together that 100 node Beowulf cluster I've always been wanting...cheap!
And that's green-friendly, 100 computers draining at least 60W, doing the same work as a single computer using 400W could do.
See which database has any data left at the end. A real database will lose the last transaction (there's no way it can't, unless you have redundant everything including power), but it won't lose the rest of the data.
Decent servers have two PSUs, and any buisness that needs to run 24/7 will have 2 mains supplies, fed from two directions, with 2 seperate UPS systems
Having said that we have a crtitical piece of software runnign on mysql 4.0.16 (yup, that's right), with myisam tables, and the application that runs on them is flakey at best. About once a month it crashes leaving the table indexes mucked up, which means a 30 minute downtime while they are rebuilt if we're lucky (the worst time was 8 hours of downtime)
Troubel is, that piece of software is out of our control.
Hmm. To the best of my knowledge, most countries don't tax prizes or betting winnings.
Certainly my country (the UK) does not
Always used too, the lottery is taxed at the point of buying a ticket, and with horses you used to have the choice to pay tax on your bet, or on the winnings.
Excellent. I would combine this with some form of mandatory sunset; no law* can stay on the books longer than 10 years unless passed all over again... with a supermajority.
So big buisness can pay people enough money to stall for long enough that an anti-monopoly law will expire? Or while they're debating that someone forgets to renew drink-driving, or murder?
That's not really relevant to my point, though, which was simply that enough people dislike something enough, it will change.
But not always, or often, for the better, or to what people expect.
I doubt it. My "think of the children" trumps your "FEAR THE TERRORISTS!" on the DNA database.
You and I will think that, however the bulk of the public will jump at the idea with the right media suggestions (think of the children -- we could catch peadophiles if we had everyone in a database!)
And the European driving licence is nothing like the proposed horror that is ID cards + NIR in the UK.
However removes control further from the people, and is likely (as with any chance at a new license) to include much more information than the current license. It will probably be intergrated with national ID cards in many European countries, and of course have the database to match (but this time a Europe-Wide database, Bulgaria will have the same access as Germany, and while German companies may be trustworthy, can you say the same about all 27 or 28 EU states?)
Besides, the DVLA already sells our information to ex-cons who run "legitimate" buisness. The cards will probably suffer from feature-creep, and people won't even be aware. Bit like Oyster in London, originally tracked your movements, with a bonus for doing so (upto half price tickets), but now it's about to track your small purchases (no doubt buying coffee with Oyster will be cheaper than with cash, as the handling charges are less, and to encourage take up)
The figure was the one widely quoted in the UK media at the time, and frequently since. My MP is now a Lib Dem, who toppled a long-established New Labour toadie who went into the last general election with a huge majority
Lib dems got a 3.5% gain in 2005, about 150k new voters. I was one of them, but not because of Iraq, there are much more important things to me about whether to try and keep the US dollar propped up or not.
Labour lost a handful of seats (thanks to the system we have that won't be changed as whoever winds the election will likely win because of that system), they'll win the election in 2007, it will take the credit card economy and the boomer retirement (which is only just starting) with no pensions to tip the ballance, and 2007 won't be it. 2010 maybe. Brown has raped and pillaged our economy, which was remarkably strong in 1997. It'll take a long time to repair it.
Blair is still in office. He hasn't been in power for at least a year. His party stood by him long enough to get a third term, because kicking out your leader just before a general election is electoral suicide whoever he is.
And 18 months later he's still in charge, where is the rebelion? Why didn't they kick him out last year to give Brown a chance to settle in before an early election?
Charles Kennedy was the only major party leader who was regarded as a net asset by his parliamentary candidates before the last election, and he got kicked out under dubious circumstances shortly afterwards, something many of his party have since regretted.)
Thanks to the portrayal by the media. Like the Sun, owned by Murdoch. The lib dems aren't immune, Labour isn't the Tories were decimated in the 90's by the media. UKIP are ridiculed, other minor parties are ignored (besides, they wouldn't win anyway). Indepenedents with a worthy cause are championed by local media, and often do very well, Kiddiminster for example, but unless that happens in at least 50 more constituencies, they have no voting power.
Big buisness runs British politics.
Today, Blair faces backbench rebellions on key legislation, causing him to lose votes for the first time since 1997, and has had to force through other manifesto commitments under a three-line whip in the face of popular opposition that would have seen enough MPs rebelling to defeat the motion otherwise.
Irrelevent how he does it, noone says his days aren't numbered,
Actually, there are several examples here in the UK where popular discontent has resulted in major changes in government policy in recent years. The Poll Tax fiasco led to a popular revolt, the law being changed, and a landslide victory to another political party.
Yes, the tax was changed to something even more unfair, which charges pensioners in the house they lived in all their lives more the mass-resource-using family of 6.
The landslide didn't happen, the Poll Tax riots were arround 1990, and legistlation to scrap the tax had been passed by the 92 election. The Tories stayed in power with the backing of the media, particularly Murdoch and the Sun. It wasn't until the ultra-sleeze Labour party got it, with the backing of the media, particularly Murdoch and the Sun.
Incidently, Thatcher got in in 1979, after being endorsed by The Sun, and Murdoch.
The Gowers Review of IP, discussed here just last week, proposes several significant shifts in the IP landscape
Many reviews propose things, as to what eventually gets enacted? At best it'll slow things down slightly, over the mid to long term, the tide won't be turned against big buisness, it never has.
the government could lose the whole ID card and "anything in the name of fighting terrorism" issue first.
They'll compromise on a DNA database and centralisation over passports and driving licenses, which is an ID card to practically everyone anyway. Besides, driving licenses are going european in 6 years.
The only major exception I can think of in recent years is the Iraq War, where 2 million protestors marching in our capital city did not result in Blair backing down
2 million? That number just goes up and up. Besides, what about the other 58 million that didn't march? Where was the massive swing to libdems in the 2005 election? If the war was important to enough people, why are Labour still in power?
and the fact that it has cost him his job and his party most of its political power will be little comfort to those suffering as a result.
War was in 2003, Blair is still in power in 2006, doesn't seem a direct cause and effect to me.
It'll be 10 years as PM when he leaves. When did you think he'd go?
That, and the other quoted one "There's coffee in that nebula", were the two I immediatly thought up. Both were in season 1. Another phrase ("We're Starfleet Officers, weird is part of the job") also emerged from the recesses of my memory, that was Season 2, 1995 or thereabouts. Goes to show that a corney-yet-promising series took a massive downhill tumble. Personally I think Futures End was the tipping point. Compare the first 2 series of Voyager with that of TNG and DS9 and it was favourable, but after that, no chance.
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Reminds me of the time I had an argument in Sainsburys when I bought a freeview box
I bought a TV from Currys, having been over this before. It went like this
Shop: you will need to fill in this tv license form.
Me: OK, postcode is SW1A2AA
Shop (reading from screen): Prime Minister and first lor....
Me: Yup
I do have a license, but I'm blowed if I'm going to be bullied into giving away personal details and marketing information.
Arguably, I couldn't even watch YouTube - it's not something thats been tested yet, but I bet it will one day.
It's not a broadcast, so you don't need a license. Same as if your neighbour tapes TV and give you a copy.
You need one if it's live, or almost live (i.e. you feed it though a delay line, like a PAL decoder, or an MPEG decoder). You may be breaching some form of copyright law though.
There's a saying here in the US that derives from an early Supreme Court case, and it says "the power to tax is the power to destroy". Now, think about that for a moment. Are you comfortable giving the government power to destroy television and/or radio communications?
They do have the power in the UK, and I'm fairly sure they do in the U.S. To broadcast you need a government aprooved license.
BBC broadcasts on shortwave while their nation is occupied by the Axis during World War II,
You don't need a license to recevie transmissions that originated abroad (i.e. shortwave propaganda from a country you're at war with), however you're probably breaking one of many other laws.
their new iPlayer looks set to to revolutionise the way TV is watched.
Yes, the old way was:
"Anyone with a standard TV that receives PAL signals can watch our broadcasts, anyone without can make their own pal decoder, it's not hard"
The new way is:
"Anyone that has a Sony TV can watch our broadcasts, if you have a Phillips, tough. Don't even think about making your own TV, but then with the state of engineering in the UK who would want to?"
The new way also involves large a amount of incentive passing between microsoft and Ashly Highfield (either swish sales talk or something mroe insideous)
My Grandma died last year of cancer. She was one of the brave women that gunned down German planes over Widnes during World War II.
;)
Saving Widnes isn't something to be proud of -- unless you mean the planes crashed into Widnes, which is a glorious triumph!
If it requires anything more complex than "double click on setup.exe" or "double click on the program icon when you save it"
Actaully it's:
1) Go to shop and buy software
or
1) Find website of software, find download page, save it locally, find the server
2) double click icon
3) Click next/next/next
In Linux it's
1) Click "Add new software"
2) Select the software you want
3) Press install
Unless youre a system administrator, programmer, or uber-geek, this is probably the only reference source you'll need to learn Microsofts Vista."
My Fiancee is not a system administrator, programmer, or uber-geek. She can use both my linux laptops, and mythtv, without any need for a manual. What is in an operating system that needs a manual? If Vista needs a manual, why doesn't it come with it? I'm sure that Office 4.3 came with thousands of pages of printed material, but now you drop a few hundered quid on a shiny DVD, put it in, and then are expected to pay mroe for a book!
Yeah, it's a much more scalable solution for the kernel to continue to include every single driver for every single piece of hardware in existence.
Distrbutions decide which drivers to include as default, however yes, the idea is that the kernel supports your hardware, no matter what it is.
I'm sorry, this is /. You aren't allowed to explain things in a clear and concise manner. At the very least you should be using a car analogy.
Or a tube analogy?
The OP was hung up on power. Obviously a bomb exploding in your apps room will knock out your database, that's where you use something like a ndb to spread your database over multiple locations
So I plan to hit the used computer store and garage sale market hard now that Vista has come out. I'll be able to finally put together that 100 node Beowulf cluster I've always been wanting...cheap!
And that's green-friendly, 100 computers draining at least 60W, doing the same work as a single computer using 400W could do.
See which database has any data left at the end. A real database will lose the last transaction (there's no way it can't, unless you have redundant everything including power), but it won't lose the rest of the data.
Decent servers have two PSUs, and any buisness that needs to run 24/7 will have 2 mains supplies, fed from two directions, with 2 seperate UPS systems
Having said that we have a crtitical piece of software runnign on mysql 4.0.16 (yup, that's right), with myisam tables, and the application that runs on them is flakey at best. About once a month it crashes leaving the table indexes mucked up, which means a 30 minute downtime while they are rebuilt if we're lucky (the worst time was 8 hours of downtime)
Troubel is, that piece of software is out of our control.
Actually, it was Colonel Mustard in the study with the candlestick. :-)
As Webmasters are usually geeks, it certainly wouldn't be Miss Scarlet, In the Bedroom, with the Whip. Unless he paid of course.
Hmm. To the best of my knowledge, most countries don't tax prizes or betting winnings.
Certainly my country (the UK) does not
Always used too, the lottery is taxed at the point of buying a ticket, and with horses you used to have the choice to pay tax on your bet, or on the winnings.
For example, "since S/PDIF doesn't provide any content protection, Vista requires that it be
disabled when playing protected content."
SPDIF does provide copy protection, or at least an indication of copyright status, by SCMS
No, we prefer to "cannon"-ize some of them...
I wish I saw the day an exec was fired. Out of a cannon OR in the Donald Trump way.
verbose, loads of links, and well written. I'm very impressed.
I do agree with much of what you're saying. Perhaps I'm just more naive/optimistic/hopeful. :-)
:)
That's what I was thinking. I'm a cynical old bugger though, and I do hope you younguns are right.
naive/optimistic is probably why you're "left-wing" too
Excellent. I would combine this with some form of mandatory sunset; no law* can stay on the books longer than 10 years unless passed all over again... with a supermajority.
So big buisness can pay people enough money to stall for long enough that an anti-monopoly law will expire? Or while they're debating that someone forgets to renew drink-driving, or murder?
That's not really relevant to my point, though, which was simply that enough people dislike something enough, it will change.
But not always, or often, for the better, or to what people expect.
I doubt it. My "think of the children" trumps your "FEAR THE TERRORISTS!" on the DNA database.
You and I will think that, however the bulk of the public will jump at the idea with the right media suggestions (think of the children -- we could catch peadophiles if we had everyone in a database!)
And the European driving licence is nothing like the proposed horror that is ID cards + NIR in the UK.
However removes control further from the people, and is likely (as with any chance at a new license) to include much more information than the current license. It will probably be intergrated with national ID cards in many European countries, and of course have the database to match (but this time a Europe-Wide database, Bulgaria will have the same access as Germany, and while German companies may be trustworthy, can you say the same about all 27 or 28 EU states?)
Besides, the DVLA already sells our information to ex-cons who run "legitimate" buisness. The cards will probably suffer from feature-creep, and people won't even be aware. Bit like Oyster in London, originally tracked your movements, with a bonus for doing so (upto half price tickets), but now it's about to track your small purchases (no doubt buying coffee with Oyster will be cheaper than with cash, as the handling charges are less, and to encourage take up)
The figure was the one widely quoted in the UK media at the time, and frequently since. My MP is now a Lib Dem, who toppled a long-established New Labour toadie who went into the last general election with a huge majority
Lib dems got a 3.5% gain in 2005, about 150k new voters. I was one of them, but not because of Iraq, there are much more important things to me about whether to try and keep the US dollar propped up or not.
Labour lost a handful of seats (thanks to the system we have that won't be changed as whoever winds the election will likely win because of that system), they'll win the election in 2007, it will take the credit card economy and the boomer retirement (which is only just starting) with no pensions to tip the ballance, and 2007 won't be it. 2010 maybe. Brown has raped and pillaged our economy, which was remarkably strong in 1997. It'll take a long time to repair it.
Blair is still in office. He hasn't been in power for at least a year. His party stood by him long enough to get a third term, because kicking out your leader just before a general election is electoral suicide whoever he is.
And 18 months later he's still in charge, where is the rebelion? Why didn't they kick him out last year to give Brown a chance to settle in before an early election?
Charles Kennedy was the only major party leader who was regarded as a net asset by his parliamentary candidates before the last election, and he got kicked out under dubious circumstances shortly afterwards, something many of his party have since regretted.)
Thanks to the portrayal by the media. Like the Sun, owned by Murdoch. The lib dems aren't immune, Labour isn't the Tories were decimated in the 90's by the media. UKIP are ridiculed, other minor parties are ignored (besides, they wouldn't win anyway). Indepenedents with a worthy cause are championed by local media, and often do very well, Kiddiminster for example, but unless that happens in at least 50 more constituencies, they have no voting power.
Big buisness runs British politics.
Today, Blair faces backbench rebellions on key legislation, causing him to lose votes for the first time since 1997, and has had to force through other manifesto commitments under a three-line whip in the face of popular opposition that would have seen enough MPs rebelling to defeat the motion otherwise.
Irrelevent how he does it, noone says his days aren't numbered,
Actually, there are several examples here in the UK where popular discontent has resulted in major changes in government policy in recent years. The Poll Tax fiasco led to a popular revolt, the law being changed, and a landslide victory to another political party.
Yes, the tax was changed to something even more unfair, which charges pensioners in the house they lived in all their lives more the mass-resource-using family of 6.
The landslide didn't happen, the Poll Tax riots were arround 1990, and legistlation to scrap the tax had been passed by the 92 election. The Tories stayed in power with the backing of the media, particularly Murdoch and the Sun. It wasn't until the ultra-sleeze Labour party got it, with the backing of the media, particularly Murdoch and the Sun.
Incidently, Thatcher got in in 1979, after being endorsed by The Sun, and Murdoch.
The Gowers Review of IP, discussed here just last week, proposes several significant shifts in the IP landscape
Many reviews propose things, as to what eventually gets enacted? At best it'll slow things down slightly, over the mid to long term, the tide won't be turned against big buisness, it never has.
the government could lose the whole ID card and "anything in the name of fighting terrorism" issue first.
They'll compromise on a DNA database and centralisation over passports and driving licenses, which is an ID card to practically everyone anyway. Besides, driving licenses are going european in 6 years.
The only major exception I can think of in recent years is the Iraq War, where 2 million protestors marching in our capital city did not result in Blair backing down
2 million? That number just goes up and up. Besides, what about the other 58 million that didn't march? Where was the massive swing to libdems in the 2005 election? If the war was important to enough people, why are Labour still in power?
and the fact that it has cost him his job and his party most of its political power will be little comfort to those suffering as a result.
War was in 2003, Blair is still in power in 2006, doesn't seem a direct cause and effect to me.
It'll be 10 years as PM when he leaves. When did you think he'd go?
"Get that cheese to sickbay!"
That, and the other quoted one "There's coffee in that nebula", were the two I immediatly thought up. Both were in season 1. Another phrase ("We're Starfleet Officers, weird is part of the job") also emerged from the recesses of my memory, that was Season 2, 1995 or thereabouts. Goes to show that a corney-yet-promising series took a massive downhill tumble. Personally I think Futures End was the tipping point. Compare the first 2 series of Voyager with that of TNG and DS9 and it was favourable, but after that, no chance.
> "Although the show is set in the future the designs are founded in TOS, it is a throwback that is also looking forward," explains
> Rossi.
That makes no sense what-so-ever.
Basically it means a return to miniskirts, but unlike TNG, only for the girls
There is no evidence that Jesus existed 2000 years ago. Do you suppose that Heracles existed, too?
Have you not watched the documentaries? Xena existed too.