We all know perfectly well that malware makers will start including a module that purposefully bricks Samsung laptops so that extortionists can threaten to wipe out a batch of corporate-owned laptops in one blow if the company refuses to cough up a substantial amount. No matter how this affair plays out, I can't see it ending well for Samsung.
In retrospect, I guess it couldn't hurt to mention at least one mass-media report that doesn't seem too excitable:
Researchers in Shanghai identified a human bacteria linked with obesity, fed it to mice and compared their weight gain with rodents without the bacteria. The latter did not become obese despite being fed a high-fat diet and being prevented from exercising.
The Shanghai team fed a morbidly obese man a special diet designed to inhibit the bacterium linked to obesity and found that he lost 29 per cent of his body weight in 23 weeks. The patient was prevented from doing any exercise during the trial.
Prof Zhao said such a loss in an obese patient using this diet was unprecedented. The patient also recovered from diabetes, high blood pressure and fatty liver disease.
It will be fascinating to see what happens when other teams try to replicate these results with larger, more statistically significant groups than just one individual. ^^;
Many of the the superstitious, ill-educated tribesmen that U.S. ground troops regularly encounter already think the Americans are witches. A headless donkey scampering along with supplies will really mess with the heads of the rag-heads. Maybe some of them will flee in terror instead of shooting at our soldiers. Really, what's not to like?
You'll excuse me for a moment whilst I cackle in wicked laughter and stroke my black cat with the unnaturally intelligent glow in its eyes. ^_^
One wonders what would happen if an ad-hoc, "name and shame" reputation network were to identify TSA agents everywhere they went. It's easy to imagine the near-universal environment of hate stares, extreme rudeness and occasional violence from victims of the TSA's Orwellian tactics putting direct pressure on TSA employees themselves to drastically reform their arrogant policies.
The marketing problem with insect consumption for Western audiences could probably be addressed by focusing a non-objectionable label on one particular kind of insect, much in the way that "beef", "pork", "chicken" and "fish" are labels for specific kinds of animal. The relatively innocuous term "cultured grasshopper meat" sounds a lot better than the generic term "squashed, processed bugs", for example. Once the idea of eating bugs... pardon me, "cultured insect meat" gains traction, acceptance for this new food will naturally expand over time to other insects.
Admittedly, I expect the idea of eating yucky wormies will catch on very, very slowly indeed with Americans, no matter how enthusiasts try to make them sound appetizing by frying them up or making delicious-looking meat pies out of them. Personally, worms will always make me think of the squishy, nasty messes on the sidewalk after a hard rain, and I'll smack anyone who tries to get me to actually eat them.
Many small companies with tight cash-flow situations and overworked owners simply do not have the resources to train new workers for the specifics of a job, and the human-resources departments of a fair number of bigger companies probably fear being blamed for new hires who take a long time to become genuinely productive. That's not to say some employers aren't being unreasonably picky, but as with most human affairs, closely examining the matter will inevitably reveal it to be more complex than the pictures drawn by simplistic answers.
Frankly, I'd look at burdensome, complex regulations and a risky legal environment as major contributors to stubborn unemployment.
I've always wondered why when irate brick and mortar retailers yell about an "unfair advantage" with no sales tax, they invariably fail to mention shipping costs, which don't exist for direct in-person brick and mortar store purchases. Admittedly, Amazon (for example) these days has free shipping for many orders of $25.00 or over, and intense competition over the past few years has put great pressure on all on-line retailers to not play games with charging excessive shipping fees to pad their profits, which used to be a huge problem.
Frankly, I gloat over not having to pay sales taxes (when possible). That's the free market. Amazon certainly has no moral obligation to levy sales taxes if there's no direct legal obligation to do it. It's up to the individual states to decide how badly they want to drive out business or attract it with varying tax treatment.
Possibly Risky But Highly Useful Nonetheless
on
Spray-On Liquid Glass
·
· Score: 3, Informative
I saw this news item as well, albeit at PhysOrg, which has linked a few interesting related articles. From the comments, it struck me that a concern is indeed the possibility that stray particles from applying this stuff might get into your lungs or on your eyes, causing all sorts of problems since it apparently binds well to organic substances. Also, one wonders what happens if the coating is degraded on food-handling surfaces. Do fragmented microparticles rip up your insides after being carried into your body within contaminated food?
Even with these concerns, of course, I'd love to test this stuff on various less risky surfaces, such as bathroom tiles and shop tools, with appropriate respiratory and eye protection. Being able to use it on a kitchen countertop would just be a welcome bonus if it turns out to be safe for that use after all. (As an aside, I think that use wouldn't breed resistant bacteria since it simply discourages any bacteria at all from growing on the protected surfaces).
It occurs to me to wonder if a person who is strong-willed and motivated enough to take the trouble to skip commercials on a DVR, is of the sort who weren't listening to the commercials anyway even if they did occasionally stare at the screen during commercial breaks before the era of DVR, and further, whether the sort of person who passively listens to commercials with or without a DVR is the sort of person who tends to be influenced by commercials with which to begin. Perhaps worried advertisers and network executives realistically aren't losing nearly as much of their actual, receptive (if hard to measure) audience(s) as they fear.
The more there are pie-in-the-sky technologies out there that have been researched over many years, the more promising and immediately useful (if currently marginally feasible) technologies there will be on hand to frantically improve at the last minute when ever-growing demand for energy peaks and readily available oil has become unaffordable for less important applications. Algae is particularly promising because it relies on a billion years of evolution focussed on minimal-energy solutions to extracting power from sunlight, and because it has relatively little background pollution associated with it (as compared to the array of toxic chemicals used to manufacture solar cells, for example). Plus, understanding of genetic engineering can only improve greatly.
I still strongly prefer nuclear energy (safe fission designs for now, fusion later if that ever gets off the ground), but the political controversy surrounding nuclear power plants appears set to make nuclear energy a minor part of future energy provisions. Algae looks to be uncontroversial and usable everywhere there is decent sunlight, with almost no toxic chemicals or proliferation concerns.
I don't really have much to say on this, but what the hell, I'll say it anyway.
Walled gardens result from the natural desire of business operators to hold on to customers once they've spent a remarkable amount of money per head to get those customers. That the tactics they use, including purposeful obstruction of data migration, are often appalling is simply irrelevant. Ethics can be hard to define for such a relatively nebulous matter as data storage formats, and most people aren't all that ethical about money with which to begin, especially in a poor economy.
This situation will continue until there is a sustained and vigorous effort on the part of customers to insist that businesses use a standard, probably XML-carried, format for customer data, preferably with legal sanctions such as fines for businesses that refuse to play ball. I've thought on this sort of thing for a few years, but don't yet have a more specific proposal. One thought is to make customers the sole legal owners of their own information, with all that implies.
We all know most people will never use "proper" passwords, let alone "properly", quite aside from offices in which ridiculous password management policies drive people to drink^h^h^h^h^h simply writing their passwords on Post-it notes stuck to their monitors. Why not make the best of a bad situation by only insisting on reasonable passwords changed no more than once per six months, complete with freely available "wallet-sized password booklets", but which are accompanied by other methods such as once-per-session typing pattern analysis verifications or cheap magnetic stripe cards? (The obvious security problem with a magnetic stripe card in the same wallet as a password booklet, for example, can be ameliorated by insisting that the magnetic stripe cards be kept in small employee lockers, and never allowed off-premises).
The point is that a little imagination is all that is needed to make security reasonably good or at least acceptable, given that the weak link will always be the kind of muppets who insist on shoving bricks between doorjambs and ultra-high-security triple-locked doors if they are at all allowed. Sure, any security method can be defeated, but it's far easier to educate (okay, frighten) people into not removing stuff from company premises (the magnetic stripe cards) or to make them perform once-a-day monkey tricks (the typing pattern analysis verifications) than it is to make them stop writing stuff down in very insecure ways. Security will tend to be more even, and problem employees will be easier to spot.
The old saying comes to mind, "The perfect is the enemy of the good."
One wonders to what extent the dominant business model of frantic and very often highly deceptive advertising effectively locks out the theoretical competitor willing to deal fairly with customers. If over here a service offers a very nice handset for a hundred dollars or for nothing after a sneaky rebate that may or may not be paid, "unlimited access" (to the Internet) with many lawyerly caveats that make it way less than unlimited, plus some seemingly large number of talk minutes per month that somehow ends up being rather less and which quietly saddles the heavy user with many extra fees, etc., then how exactly does the theoretical ethical service over there attract (the better class of) customers in all the noise and hand-waving?
Telling potential customers that they will get less and pay more than with advertised plans from competitors, even if they actually get more and pay less, is a hard sell. When everyone else is lying, how do you prove you are not just another sleazy liar? Are there even enough potential customers of the ethical service provider in any given coverage area willing to take their eyes off the shiny new handset long enough to squint suspiciously and intelligently at the fine print?
There must be a few smaller service providers that aren't crooked, scattered throughout the country. I wonder how well they are doing financially.
Obviously, jury nullification of bad interpretations of hot-button laws doesn't work when the juries themselves react convulsively to the mere hint of child pornography, even when the "child" is not an actual child except under the most hyper-technical legal definition. Just think, juries tend in the main to be exactly these semi-illiterates who aren't bright enough to slip out of jury duty. It's all really depressing and makes me wonder what will become of the Republic.
Oh, and for the slightly clueless who need a hint, a surefire way to get out of jury duty is to clearly declare that you believe in jury nullification.
I'm worried that the Supreme Court, should it eventually take this case, might find a way to justify these hugely exorbitant awards on technically narrow and nit-picky grounds that nonetheless are broad enough in reality to make fighting the RIAA essentially a hopeless cause financially for most people. The Kelo decision shows the kind of sloppy reasoning that can lead to appalling results. It surely doesn't help that Jammie appears to be guilty of deliberate file-sharing and tampering with evidence after the fact. One could wish heartily for a much more sympathetic defendant.
I did a lot of research on this last year. For what it's worth, I'll offer a few thoughts from what I remember.
First, get an antenna that can handle both UHF and VHF. Some stations will still broadcast on VHF. Ignore ridiculous marketing claims that an antenna is "digitally optimised" or "HDTV ready" or however that went. A signal is a signal. Having said that, from reports, some "UHF-only" indoor/outdoor antennas will actually do okay with VHF signals as well. I wish I'd known that last fact before buying a honking big outdoor VHF/UHF antenna. The "UHF-only" antennas take way less room. In any case, find out where the stations are located physically, and point the antenna at them. If they're dispersed, you may need a motor control to rotate the antenna, which is a pain, or multiple antennas, which is a big pain.
When I finally bothered to hook up the analog/digital conversion box for more than brief testing, and a freaking huge outdoor VHF/UHF antenna *inside* my apartment (it's mounted on a short brass rod stuck in a hole drilled into the end of a two-by-four stub mounted on a large homemade work table, so that it's up near the ceiling), I got channels 8 (CBS), 10-1 (NBC), 10-2 (NBC), 13-1 (ABC), 13-2 (ABC), 21-1 (PBS), 21-2 (PBS), 21-3 (PBS), and 31 (Fox). This is four more channels than for analog. However, channels 8 and 13-1/13-2 are basically unwatchable, with signal levels too low. The picture constantly jerks and pixellates. I hoping those stations jack up the freaking power soon. There are some okay shows on 13-2, in particular. If not, screw it. If they don't care enough, why should I? I watch a lot of DVDs, and there are more okay films on DVD than I can realistically watch in a lifetime, even with only watching each film *once*.
Second, don't get the absolute cheapest converter box. It'll likely have serious problems unless you get fairly lucky, such as sometimes severe audio lag, poor handling of marginal signals, a poor feature set, a tendency to fail early, etc. I ended up paying about $23 per box after taxes, for the ones I bought with the two $40 off coupons sent by the government. If you're interested, these were the Zenith DTT-901 model, May 2008 firmware. One feature I liked was "pass-through", but that obviously will make no difference very soon. I'm not up to speed on current models. Look on video fanatic forums. Odds are good you'll find a decent brand and model for little money. I can't remember if any $40 off coupons are still good, but if they are and you have them, use them for two copies of the same model, so you'll have one on hand while the other is in the shop, if needed. Worst comes to the worst, you can sell the extra copy or give it to a relation.
If you're having trouble with elderly relations, tell them that the little box is a bully and that it has taken over the channel switching. It may sound a bit condescending, but if it works, why not? It's a clearer visual image for them than the obscurity of technical details. Be sure the remotes for them have large buttons and are as simple as possible. Keep the "good" remotes in a drawer, for when you need them to set up stuff. I use myself a nice Sony programmable remote, and it works well, but even I have a bit of trouble sometimes with flipping from one mode to another, whilst managing for example overlapping sound level controls (mainly when playing DVDs that seem to flip a coin when it comes to loudness). Asking elderly relations to cope with this kind of remote fiddliness will be too much if they already have trouble with the DTV changeover with which to begin. It will cause active pain (to you), but discard *everything* except power and start/stop (for DVDs if applicable) and volume and channels for your kindly but dumb elders. If you're daring, explain the fast forward button. One hopes that doesn't overlook anything!
(Yeah, I know about TV Fool and such, but that's been covered in vast detail elsewhere, and I forgot most of it anyway, heh-heh!)
Oh, yeah, put a smiley face on this and it'll be Toppin' Fresh for the kids. "Look, Mommy! It's... the Pillsbury Doughtower! Can I climb him, pleeeaaassse?"
Heck, if you're gonna mess with inflatables and a lot of mass, why not just make a strong lightweight carbon-nanotube/aluminum alloy airfield and float the thing way up there in the sky with near-space to orbit aircraft/spacecraft? Perfect for Han Solo!
I was curious about one of the prototypes listed, so I searched for it. One of the pictures, for example, shows what seems an okay sized keyboard displayed on a touch-sensitive screen, but one wonders how it would feel to actually have to type very much on it. One of the reasons I've been waiting for prices to drop on the Asus EEE PC 1000HE Netbook is that I wanted a small-form laptop with quite long battery life which also offered a keyboard large enough to allow a decent amount of typing before my fingers would suddenly thrash around and reach for my throat.
I do like the idea behind these "smartbooks", especially with Linux distributions, but just how small is it possible to make keyboards (virtual or real) on what looks like a small laptop before people will simply balk at them (sometimes without quite knowing why)?
How has this worked for other common ultra-portable devices with semi-full keysets that haven't been explicitly marketed as "smartbooks/netbooks/notebooks"?
I'm typically a "small-ell" libertarian, but I'm strongly moved to advocate that the principals in the acceptance of vast sums of public money during the 1990s to provide nearly universal broadband be given the choice of either being sent to prison for fraud, or agreeing to the nationalisation of their companies, with control over operations specifically delegated to individual cities or counties. It might be unwise in some ways, but how can it be worse than the situation that exists today, with greedy, infinitely arrogant corporations butt-raping their customers in semi-monopoly markets?
Without knowing the details of the settlement, I suspect the RIAA agreed to drop the entire case, in return for silence on the subject and a non-binding secret precedent. Ms. Santangelo and her family are doubtless by now dreadfully tired of the entire mess and anxious to see it go away, and the RIAA is doubtless in a thug lawyerish way dreadfully tired of the entire mess by now and anxious to sweep it under the rug, leaving them with freedom to continue their other cases without an embarrassing public precedent.
Of course, this leaves Ms. Santangelo and her family uncompensated for having been put through the mill, but that's the legal system for you.
By all means set up your own blog and "swamp" mentions of your name with positive links and commentary. It will help anyway, and push mentions of the pervert down on search engines in general. Don't even mention the pervert, because you don't want any attention drawn to him (or her) with which to begin. Don't try too hard, though. Just gradually build up a body of links and commentary via blog entries and trackbacks or comments on other blogs, using your own name naturally. Anyone who purposefully searches for dirt on you will find the pervert anyway, and realise in all probability quickly that the pervert is a different person.
We desperately need a special police force and judicial system that has the power to arrest, try and jail or execute *only* public officials, with no power over ordinary citizens. Seeing a few hundred corrupt judges and prosecutors and police officers and government employees hanging from yardarms or rotting in prison will do wonders for shaping them up.
Slashdot Mirror
We all know perfectly well that malware makers will start including a module that purposefully bricks Samsung laptops so that extortionists can threaten to wipe out a batch of corporate-owned laptops in one blow if the company refuses to cough up a substantial amount. No matter how this affair plays out, I can't see it ending well for Samsung.
It will be fascinating to see what happens when other teams try to replicate these results with larger, more statistically significant groups than just one individual. ^^;
Many of the the superstitious, ill-educated tribesmen that U.S. ground troops regularly encounter already think the Americans are witches. A headless donkey scampering along with supplies will really mess with the heads of the rag-heads. Maybe some of them will flee in terror instead of shooting at our soldiers. Really, what's not to like? You'll excuse me for a moment whilst I cackle in wicked laughter and stroke my black cat with the unnaturally intelligent glow in its eyes. ^_^
One wonders what would happen if an ad-hoc, "name and shame" reputation network were to identify TSA agents everywhere they went. It's easy to imagine the near-universal environment of hate stares, extreme rudeness and occasional violence from victims of the TSA's Orwellian tactics putting direct pressure on TSA employees themselves to drastically reform their arrogant policies.
The marketing problem with insect consumption for Western audiences could probably be addressed by focusing a non-objectionable label on one particular kind of insect, much in the way that "beef", "pork", "chicken" and "fish" are labels for specific kinds of animal. The relatively innocuous term "cultured grasshopper meat" sounds a lot better than the generic term "squashed, processed bugs", for example. Once the idea of eating bugs ... pardon me, "cultured insect meat" gains traction, acceptance for this new food will naturally expand over time to other insects.
Admittedly, I expect the idea of eating yucky wormies will catch on very, very slowly indeed with Americans, no matter how enthusiasts try to make them sound appetizing by frying them up or making delicious-looking meat pies out of them. Personally, worms will always make me think of the squishy, nasty messes on the sidewalk after a hard rain, and I'll smack anyone who tries to get me to actually eat them.
Many small companies with tight cash-flow situations and overworked owners simply do not have the resources to train new workers for the specifics of a job, and the human-resources departments of a fair number of bigger companies probably fear being blamed for new hires who take a long time to become genuinely productive. That's not to say some employers aren't being unreasonably picky, but as with most human affairs, closely examining the matter will inevitably reveal it to be more complex than the pictures drawn by simplistic answers. Frankly, I'd look at burdensome, complex regulations and a risky legal environment as major contributors to stubborn unemployment.
I've always wondered why when irate brick and mortar retailers yell about an "unfair advantage" with no sales tax, they invariably fail to mention shipping costs, which don't exist for direct in-person brick and mortar store purchases. Admittedly, Amazon (for example) these days has free shipping for many orders of $25.00 or over, and intense competition over the past few years has put great pressure on all on-line retailers to not play games with charging excessive shipping fees to pad their profits, which used to be a huge problem.
Frankly, I gloat over not having to pay sales taxes (when possible). That's the free market. Amazon certainly has no moral obligation to levy sales taxes if there's no direct legal obligation to do it. It's up to the individual states to decide how badly they want to drive out business or attract it with varying tax treatment.
I saw this news item as well, albeit at PhysOrg, which has linked a few interesting related articles. From the comments, it struck me that a concern is indeed the possibility that stray particles from applying this stuff might get into your lungs or on your eyes, causing all sorts of problems since it apparently binds well to organic substances. Also, one wonders what happens if the coating is degraded on food-handling surfaces. Do fragmented microparticles rip up your insides after being carried into your body within contaminated food?
Even with these concerns, of course, I'd love to test this stuff on various less risky surfaces, such as bathroom tiles and shop tools, with appropriate respiratory and eye protection. Being able to use it on a kitchen countertop would just be a welcome bonus if it turns out to be safe for that use after all. (As an aside, I think that use wouldn't breed resistant bacteria since it simply discourages any bacteria at all from growing on the protected surfaces).
It occurs to me to wonder if a person who is strong-willed and motivated enough to take the trouble to skip commercials on a DVR, is of the sort who weren't listening to the commercials anyway even if they did occasionally stare at the screen during commercial breaks before the era of DVR, and further, whether the sort of person who passively listens to commercials with or without a DVR is the sort of person who tends to be influenced by commercials with which to begin. Perhaps worried advertisers and network executives realistically aren't losing nearly as much of their actual, receptive (if hard to measure) audience(s) as they fear.
The more there are pie-in-the-sky technologies out there that have been researched over many years, the more promising and immediately useful (if currently marginally feasible) technologies there will be on hand to frantically improve at the last minute when ever-growing demand for energy peaks and readily available oil has become unaffordable for less important applications. Algae is particularly promising because it relies on a billion years of evolution focussed on minimal-energy solutions to extracting power from sunlight, and because it has relatively little background pollution associated with it (as compared to the array of toxic chemicals used to manufacture solar cells, for example). Plus, understanding of genetic engineering can only improve greatly.
I still strongly prefer nuclear energy (safe fission designs for now, fusion later if that ever gets off the ground), but the political controversy surrounding nuclear power plants appears set to make nuclear energy a minor part of future energy provisions. Algae looks to be uncontroversial and usable everywhere there is decent sunlight, with almost no toxic chemicals or proliferation concerns.
I don't really have much to say on this, but what the hell, I'll say it anyway.
Walled gardens result from the natural desire of business operators to hold on to customers once they've spent a remarkable amount of money per head to get those customers. That the tactics they use, including purposeful obstruction of data migration, are often appalling is simply irrelevant. Ethics can be hard to define for such a relatively nebulous matter as data storage formats, and most people aren't all that ethical about money with which to begin, especially in a poor economy.
This situation will continue until there is a sustained and vigorous effort on the part of customers to insist that businesses use a standard, probably XML-carried, format for customer data, preferably with legal sanctions such as fines for businesses that refuse to play ball. I've thought on this sort of thing for a few years, but don't yet have a more specific proposal. One thought is to make customers the sole legal owners of their own information, with all that implies.
It's nice to see a politician who can actually pass the Turing test.
We all know most people will never use "proper" passwords, let alone "properly", quite aside from offices in which ridiculous password management policies drive people to drink^h^h^h^h^h simply writing their passwords on Post-it notes stuck to their monitors. Why not make the best of a bad situation by only insisting on reasonable passwords changed no more than once per six months, complete with freely available "wallet-sized password booklets", but which are accompanied by other methods such as once-per-session typing pattern analysis verifications or cheap magnetic stripe cards? (The obvious security problem with a magnetic stripe card in the same wallet as a password booklet, for example, can be ameliorated by insisting that the magnetic stripe cards be kept in small employee lockers, and never allowed off-premises).
The point is that a little imagination is all that is needed to make security reasonably good or at least acceptable, given that the weak link will always be the kind of muppets who insist on shoving bricks between doorjambs and ultra-high-security triple-locked doors if they are at all allowed. Sure, any security method can be defeated, but it's far easier to educate (okay, frighten) people into not removing stuff from company premises (the magnetic stripe cards) or to make them perform once-a-day monkey tricks (the typing pattern analysis verifications) than it is to make them stop writing stuff down in very insecure ways. Security will tend to be more even, and problem employees will be easier to spot.
The old saying comes to mind, "The perfect is the enemy of the good."
One wonders to what extent the dominant business model of frantic and very often highly deceptive advertising effectively locks out the theoretical competitor willing to deal fairly with customers. If over here a service offers a very nice handset for a hundred dollars or for nothing after a sneaky rebate that may or may not be paid, "unlimited access" (to the Internet) with many lawyerly caveats that make it way less than unlimited, plus some seemingly large number of talk minutes per month that somehow ends up being rather less and which quietly saddles the heavy user with many extra fees, etc., then how exactly does the theoretical ethical service over there attract (the better class of) customers in all the noise and hand-waving?
Telling potential customers that they will get less and pay more than with advertised plans from competitors, even if they actually get more and pay less, is a hard sell. When everyone else is lying, how do you prove you are not just another sleazy liar? Are there even enough potential customers of the ethical service provider in any given coverage area willing to take their eyes off the shiny new handset long enough to squint suspiciously and intelligently at the fine print?
There must be a few smaller service providers that aren't crooked, scattered throughout the country. I wonder how well they are doing financially.
Obviously, jury nullification of bad interpretations of hot-button laws doesn't work when the juries themselves react convulsively to the mere hint of child pornography, even when the "child" is not an actual child except under the most hyper-technical legal definition. Just think, juries tend in the main to be exactly these semi-illiterates who aren't bright enough to slip out of jury duty. It's all really depressing and makes me wonder what will become of the Republic.
Oh, and for the slightly clueless who need a hint, a surefire way to get out of jury duty is to clearly declare that you believe in jury nullification.
I'm worried that the Supreme Court, should it eventually take this case, might find a way to justify these hugely exorbitant awards on technically narrow and nit-picky grounds that nonetheless are broad enough in reality to make fighting the RIAA essentially a hopeless cause financially for most people. The Kelo decision shows the kind of sloppy reasoning that can lead to appalling results. It surely doesn't help that Jammie appears to be guilty of deliberate file-sharing and tampering with evidence after the fact. One could wish heartily for a much more sympathetic defendant.
The project will not be complete until they have a logo with Tux the Linux Penguin lofting a good German beer.
I did a lot of research on this last year. For what it's worth, I'll offer a few thoughts from what I remember.
First, get an antenna that can handle both UHF and VHF. Some stations will still broadcast on VHF. Ignore ridiculous marketing claims that an antenna is "digitally optimised" or "HDTV ready" or however that went. A signal is a signal. Having said that, from reports, some "UHF-only" indoor/outdoor antennas will actually do okay with VHF signals as well. I wish I'd known that last fact before buying a honking big outdoor VHF/UHF antenna. The "UHF-only" antennas take way less room. In any case, find out where the stations are located physically, and point the antenna at them. If they're dispersed, you may need a motor control to rotate the antenna, which is a pain, or multiple antennas, which is a big pain.
When I finally bothered to hook up the analog/digital conversion box for more than brief testing, and a freaking huge outdoor VHF/UHF antenna *inside* my apartment (it's mounted on a short brass rod stuck in a hole drilled into the end of a two-by-four stub mounted on a large homemade work table, so that it's up near the ceiling), I got channels 8 (CBS), 10-1 (NBC), 10-2 (NBC), 13-1 (ABC), 13-2 (ABC), 21-1 (PBS), 21-2 (PBS), 21-3 (PBS), and 31 (Fox). This is four more channels than for analog. However, channels 8 and 13-1/13-2 are basically unwatchable, with signal levels too low. The picture constantly jerks and pixellates. I hoping those stations jack up the freaking power soon. There are some okay shows on 13-2, in particular. If not, screw it. If they don't care enough, why should I? I watch a lot of DVDs, and there are more okay films on DVD than I can realistically watch in a lifetime, even with only watching each film *once*.
Second, don't get the absolute cheapest converter box. It'll likely have serious problems unless you get fairly lucky, such as sometimes severe audio lag, poor handling of marginal signals, a poor feature set, a tendency to fail early, etc. I ended up paying about $23 per box after taxes, for the ones I bought with the two $40 off coupons sent by the government. If you're interested, these were the Zenith DTT-901 model, May 2008 firmware. One feature I liked was "pass-through", but that obviously will make no difference very soon. I'm not up to speed on current models. Look on video fanatic forums. Odds are good you'll find a decent brand and model for little money. I can't remember if any $40 off coupons are still good, but if they are and you have them, use them for two copies of the same model, so you'll have one on hand while the other is in the shop, if needed. Worst comes to the worst, you can sell the extra copy or give it to a relation.
If you're having trouble with elderly relations, tell them that the little box is a bully and that it has taken over the channel switching. It may sound a bit condescending, but if it works, why not? It's a clearer visual image for them than the obscurity of technical details. Be sure the remotes for them have large buttons and are as simple as possible. Keep the "good" remotes in a drawer, for when you need them to set up stuff. I use myself a nice Sony programmable remote, and it works well, but even I have a bit of trouble sometimes with flipping from one mode to another, whilst managing for example overlapping sound level controls (mainly when playing DVDs that seem to flip a coin when it comes to loudness). Asking elderly relations to cope with this kind of remote fiddliness will be too much if they already have trouble with the DTV changeover with which to begin. It will cause active pain (to you), but discard *everything* except power and start/stop (for DVDs if applicable) and volume and channels for your kindly but dumb elders. If you're daring, explain the fast forward button. One hopes that doesn't overlook anything!
(Yeah, I know about TV Fool and such, but that's been covered in vast detail elsewhere, and I forgot most of it anyway, heh-heh!)
Oh, yeah, put a smiley face on this and it'll be Toppin' Fresh for the kids. "Look, Mommy! It's ... the Pillsbury Doughtower! Can I climb him, pleeeaaassse?"
Heck, if you're gonna mess with inflatables and a lot of mass, why not just make a strong lightweight carbon-nanotube/aluminum alloy airfield and float the thing way up there in the sky with near-space to orbit aircraft/spacecraft? Perfect for Han Solo!
I was curious about one of the prototypes listed, so I searched for it. One of the pictures, for example, shows what seems an okay sized keyboard displayed on a touch-sensitive screen, but one wonders how it would feel to actually have to type very much on it. One of the reasons I've been waiting for prices to drop on the Asus EEE PC 1000HE Netbook is that I wanted a small-form laptop with quite long battery life which also offered a keyboard large enough to allow a decent amount of typing before my fingers would suddenly thrash around and reach for my throat.
I do like the idea behind these "smartbooks", especially with Linux distributions, but just how small is it possible to make keyboards (virtual or real) on what looks like a small laptop before people will simply balk at them (sometimes without quite knowing why)?
How has this worked for other common ultra-portable devices with semi-full keysets that haven't been explicitly marketed as "smartbooks/netbooks/notebooks"?
It'll be interesting to see if this latest provocation makes Japan finally go nuclear.
I'm typically a "small-ell" libertarian, but I'm strongly moved to advocate that the principals in the acceptance of vast sums of public money during the 1990s to provide nearly universal broadband be given the choice of either being sent to prison for fraud, or agreeing to the nationalisation of their companies, with control over operations specifically delegated to individual cities or counties. It might be unwise in some ways, but how can it be worse than the situation that exists today, with greedy, infinitely arrogant corporations butt-raping their customers in semi-monopoly markets?
Without knowing the details of the settlement, I suspect the RIAA agreed to drop the entire case, in return for silence on the subject and a non-binding secret precedent. Ms. Santangelo and her family are doubtless by now dreadfully tired of the entire mess and anxious to see it go away, and the RIAA is doubtless in a thug lawyerish way dreadfully tired of the entire mess by now and anxious to sweep it under the rug, leaving them with freedom to continue their other cases without an embarrassing public precedent.
Of course, this leaves Ms. Santangelo and her family uncompensated for having been put through the mill, but that's the legal system for you.
By all means set up your own blog and "swamp" mentions of your name with positive links and commentary. It will help anyway, and push mentions of the pervert down on search engines in general. Don't even mention the pervert, because you don't want any attention drawn to him (or her) with which to begin. Don't try too hard, though. Just gradually build up a body of links and commentary via blog entries and trackbacks or comments on other blogs, using your own name naturally. Anyone who purposefully searches for dirt on you will find the pervert anyway, and realise in all probability quickly that the pervert is a different person.
We desperately need a special police force and judicial system that has the power to arrest, try and jail or execute *only* public officials, with no power over ordinary citizens. Seeing a few hundred corrupt judges and prosecutors and police officers and government employees hanging from yardarms or rotting in prison will do wonders for shaping them up.