The traffic info is sent as a set of numbers. One number is the event code. It ranges from 0 to 2048. Another number is the location code. The map on your navigation device contains a mapping of location codes to roads.
The event code is translated into a human readable text by your navigation device. That text depends on the language you use. So when you get the code "3 km stationary traffic" a German driver will see something like "3km Stau". So you can't put any advertising in that.
However, the RDS station name is sent as text. And it is often abused, as that is what car radios show. France recently passed a law that prohibited putting anything other than the name of the radio station in that field.
Re:Social hack - use "bullfight" for "speed trap".
on
Is Your GPS Naive?
·
· Score: 1
They use the "police checkpoint" code for this (speed traps) in the Netherlands. There are some other very interesting codes for things like "gunfire on the road", "airplane crash", "high speed chase", "animals on the road", "tornadoes", "tunnel ventilation not working", "gas leak", etc. If you google for AlertC you may find a list.
Once upon a time, domains were safe. You would not be able to get a.com second-level domain unless you were a legitimate commercial business in the USA. And you would not be able to get a.org domain unless you were a legitimate organization in the USA. This ended when Network Solutions (now Verisign) got to manage those TLD's and they got to charge for second-level domains. Network Solutions chose not to enforce those restrictions. After that everyone was able to register a second-level domain in.com,.org and.net. This maximized Network Solution's revenue. But the internet got to live with things like domain-hoarding and phishing.
A decade later, ICANN created.biz with the intention that only legitimate commercial entities were allowed there. And once again, the manager of the TLD decided not to enforce those restrictions. I guess more domains means more money for the registry. The.biz TLD never took off anyway.
GPS is not always accurate. GPS can fail. And if something is disturbing the signal of the GPS, you are SOL. High-end systems also have a gyro that keeps track of the movements of the car. These systems are more accurate.
The harder they pushed it, the more they broke it.
on
EU Patents Won't Stay Dead
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· Score: 2, Interesting
The cynic in me tells me that the "Software implemented inventions" item will probably be removed from the agenda next monday. It does not matter. It was a big mistake on the part of the pro-patent lobby to push so hard for the adoption of the directive when there was no majority. It put the pro-patent lobby in the position that they had to lobby against democracy. This destroyed any chance of a patent-friendly directive.
Commissioner McGreevy had effectively lost when the EU parliament voted for the restart with a very large majority. Sure, the commission could refuse the restart, and it foolishly did so. The council might even have adapted the directive. But there was no way this would get through a second reading. Denmark saved McGreevy and the rest of the commission from a devastating showdown with the EU parliament. The commission should be grateful.
Indentation makes code more readable. That is why nearly every programmer uses it. Making the syntax of a language indentation-sensitive only adds a check to this. The bad thing about indentation-sensitive syntaxes is that they usually drop the end-of-block token (end if, end while, }, etc.). And that really causes a loss of readability.
An enumeration is just a list of objects that only support their identity. Usually some behaviour is associated with these enumerated objects. This behaviour is put in case statements.
In an Object Oriented language, you can use the State pattern instead of using enumerations and case statements. In the State pattern the behaviour is put into virtual functions instead of case statements.
Both styles (enumerations/case statements versus state objects/virtual functions) have their advantages and disadvantages.
To anyone who has seen how easy copying
copyrighted materials has become in the digital
age, it is clear that the current copyright
system cannot hold. Unless people are willing to
accept a police state where your internet link
and hard drive are constantly monitored.
The recording industry wants us to pay for something that we can get for nearly free at the black market. In a pure economic sense music or any other form of publicly available information has no value. It can be copied endlessly creating an endless supply. Copyright tries to create a market system for something in which the laws of supply and demand inherently fail. It does so
by giving the authors monopolies on their work.
This system can work to meet supply and demand. An author may have a monopoly on his work but if his price is too high or his quality is too low, we may choose a similar work from another author.
But there is a lack of supply in the music business. Competition by creating similar works is stiffled because similar samples or music
is viewed by the legal system as derived work.
Worse, the cartel of recording companies has
made the price for copyrighter music works too high. So consumers turn to an alternative market where the price is lower: the black market of privacy.
But copyright was originally invented to protec
authors from publishers that simply copied a work
and published it without paying the author. And
this is exactly what Napster has been doing. Some
say that Napster is not explicitly meant for
distributing copyrighted material. But that does
not matter. Napster knew from day one that most
of the music was copyrighted material. Napster's
business plan was to make money from copyrighted
music without paying the copyright holders.
And it is not proper to expect musicians to work for nothing.
I think that the monopolization of music by organizations like the RIAA is wrong. But the creation of a black market in music like Napster is doing is also wrong. Consumers and producers of music should work together instead of trying to exploit each other.
Slashdot Mirror
The traffic info is sent as a set of numbers. One number is the event code. It ranges from 0 to 2048. Another number is the location code. The map on your navigation device contains a mapping of location codes to roads.
The event code is translated into a human readable text by your navigation device. That text depends on the language you use. So when you get the code "3 km stationary traffic" a German driver will see something like "3km Stau". So you can't put any advertising in that.
However, the RDS station name is sent as text. And it is often abused, as that is what car radios show. France recently passed a law that prohibited putting anything other than the name of the radio station in that field.
They use the "police checkpoint" code for this (speed traps) in the Netherlands. There are some other very interesting codes for things like "gunfire on the road", "airplane crash", "high speed chase", "animals on the road", "tornadoes", "tunnel ventilation not working", "gas leak", etc. If you google for AlertC you may find a list.
Once upon a time, domains were safe. You would not be able to get a .com second-level domain unless you were a legitimate commercial business in the USA. And you would not be able to get a .org domain unless you were a legitimate organization in the USA. This ended when Network Solutions (now Verisign) got to manage those TLD's and they got to charge for second-level domains. Network Solutions chose not to enforce those restrictions. After that everyone was able to register a second-level domain in .com, .org and .net. This maximized Network Solution's revenue. But the internet got to live with things like domain-hoarding and phishing.
.biz with the intention that only legitimate commercial entities were allowed there. And once again, the manager of the TLD decided not to enforce those restrictions. I guess more domains means more money for the registry. The .biz TLD never took off anyway.
A decade later, ICANN created
Google News is using stories from online sources without a license. When will Google itself cease and desist?
GPS is not always accurate. GPS can fail. And if something is disturbing the signal of the GPS, you are SOL. High-end systems also have a gyro that keeps track of the movements of the car. These systems are more accurate.
FWIW:
The number of D projects on sourceforge is 32.
The number of Eiffel projects on sourceforge is 69.
You may have a point here.
D is doing OK. Just look at the programming language popularity index at http://www.tiobe.com/tpci.htm/.
The cynic in me tells me that the "Software implemented inventions" item will probably be removed from the agenda next monday. It does not matter. It was a big mistake on the part of the pro-patent lobby to push so hard for the adoption of the directive when there was no majority. It put the pro-patent lobby in the position that they had to lobby against democracy. This destroyed any chance of a patent-friendly directive.
Commissioner McGreevy had effectively lost when the EU parliament voted for the restart with a very large majority. Sure, the commission could refuse the restart, and it foolishly did so. The council might even have adapted the directive. But there was no way this would get through a second reading. Denmark saved McGreevy and the rest of the commission from a devastating showdown with the EU parliament. The commission should be grateful.
Indentation makes code more readable. That is why nearly every programmer uses it. Making the syntax of a language indentation-sensitive only adds a check to this. The bad thing about indentation-sensitive syntaxes is that they usually drop the end-of-block token (end if, end while, }, etc.). And that really causes a loss of readability.
An enumeration is just a list of objects that only support their identity. Usually some behaviour is associated with these enumerated objects. This behaviour is put in case statements.
In an Object Oriented language, you can use the State pattern instead of using enumerations and case statements. In the State pattern the behaviour is put into virtual functions instead of case statements.
Both styles (enumerations/case statements versus state objects/virtual functions) have their advantages and disadvantages.
And isn't that what Karl Marx predicted even before the start of the 19th century?
To anyone who has seen how easy copying
copyrighted materials has become in the digital
age, it is clear that the current copyright
system cannot hold. Unless people are willing to
accept a police state where your internet link
and hard drive are constantly monitored.
The recording industry wants us to pay for something that we can get for nearly free at the black market. In a pure economic sense music or any other form of publicly available information has no value. It can be copied endlessly creating an endless supply. Copyright tries to create a market system for something in which the laws of supply and demand inherently fail. It does so
by giving the authors monopolies on their work.
This system can work to meet supply and demand. An author may have a monopoly on his work but if his price is too high or his quality is too low, we may choose a similar work from another author.
But there is a lack of supply in the music business. Competition by creating similar works is stiffled because similar samples or music
is viewed by the legal system as derived work.
Worse, the cartel of recording companies has
made the price for copyrighter music works too high. So consumers turn to an alternative market where the price is lower: the black market of privacy.
But copyright was originally invented to protec
authors from publishers that simply copied a work
and published it without paying the author. And
this is exactly what Napster has been doing. Some
say that Napster is not explicitly meant for
distributing copyrighted material. But that does
not matter. Napster knew from day one that most
of the music was copyrighted material. Napster's
business plan was to make money from copyrighted
music without paying the copyright holders.
And it is not proper to expect musicians to work for nothing.
I think that the monopolization of music by organizations like the RIAA is wrong. But the creation of a black market in music like Napster is doing is also wrong. Consumers and producers of music should work together instead of trying to exploit each other.