I agree (at least partially) with most of your post. But I want to react on one of your statements:
Banksys/proton (a private company, being the only one that has the full picture of money flowing nation-wide)
Thanks to Banksys I can withdraw money from any ATM in Belgium, no mather what bank hosts the ATM or which bank issued my bank card. I also can use my bank card to pay in all supermarkets and almost all other shops. I don't think much Belgians should be eager to give up this comfort.
And you mention it's a private company. I suppose you also would complain if it was implemented by the government, as in that case the government has all information on these transactions.
And Proton, an electronic purse for small purchases, is actually not connected to a single person. It's the electronic equivalent to a wallet with small change, and anybody can use such a card (you don't need a PIN code to use it).
I was satisfied with my BJC-5100 when I bought it (except for the fact I couldn't use it with Linux). But due to lack of drivers the printer completely stopped working when I upgraded from Win2k to WinXP. Their (helpdesk's) reaction: "bad luck..."
As others have pointed out, Canon has other problems, in particular concerning driver support. But it is not only about support for Free operating systems...
Early in 2000, I bought a Canon BJC-5100. Looking back, that model apparently was at the end of its life cycle, and shops stopped selling it some time later. It was a Win-printer (all rendering done in the driver, not even support for printing plain text at the printer level), so I couldn't use it with Linux. But it worked fine in Windows 2000.
Later, when I upgraded to Windows XP, I came to the conclusion Canon dropped all support for my printer, and XP drivers did not exist. The Win2k drivers didn't work in XP. I contacted the Canon help desk, but they basically told me: "Bad luck..." So now I had a printer, bought 1.5 years earlier, which was totally useless.
If a manufacturer wants satisfied customers, it should support its older products, at least some time after they are discontinued.
I loved Shaolin Soccer, released in the US as Kung-Fu Soccer (which is a rather unsuitable title, it's not a kung-fu movie). Very funny, and a very good movie in general.
As the parent post mentioned, zip functionality is bundeled with WinXP and WinME. It's not a separate utility, but its integrated in Windows Explorer. In explorer, zip files open as normal directories (and by right clicking files in explorer you can zip them).
So you don't need WinZip to handle zip files. But Windows doesn't know about tar or gzip files, so you still have to use WinZip for those.
I remember seeing a board with four SID sockets once, you could use the original or upgraded chips.
That's the HardSID. The standard version has one SID socket, and the HardSID Quattro has four. ISA versions of these exist for some years now, and the PCI cards are promised to be released this month.
This Apple employee (posting as AC) started his post with "I'm posting this anonymously to protect my job. Not that they'll fire me or anything, but why risk it?"
I think, in theory, Apple could legally force/. to release this guy's information, as I suppose he has not posted from a cybercafé.
Did you notice the search button now says "Google Slashdot?"
One of the articles (besides the total nonsense "test test blablabla" kind) on brak.slashdot.org was "What search features would you like on Slashdot?" The tread gone now, as they mirrored slashdot.org to brak.slashdot.org. But the use of Google as search engine was one of the suggestions in this thread. And it seems they are testing that suggestion now.
Besides Kartoo, the NYT article mentions Vivísimo as a search engine providing an alternative way of viewing results. Vivísimo displays the results in a more classical text-oriented list, but with a tree of hierarchical folders alongside it. These folders provide refinements of your search with additional keywords.
I considered subscribing to eMusic before, but the only reason holding me back is the bitrate of the MP3s. The songs you download are encoded at 128kbit.
I think it's fantastic they offer their songs in MP3 and not some proprietary format, and I would subscribe immediately if the songs were encoded at a higher bit rate.
Other civilizations will also go through evolution. So the earliest signals emitted will be the simple ones, and those will reach us first. If aliens detect signals from us at this moment, it will probably be radio or television emisions from decades ago. Marconi transmitted the first radio signal in 1901, but signals from those days are probably too weak to detect, even with technologies more advanced than ours. But earth's strongest transmitters like military radars are sending out signals since about 30 years.
You can find even more projects here. And they're ordered in categories, including science, mathematics, puzzles and even art (I really like the Electric Sheep Project).
A few days ago, an article on The Brunching Shuttlecocks featured these three recipes. Really funny, and so true to life (my life at least...) Check that "Summertime Watermelon Sherbet," the "Salsa Fresca" and the "Omelet Florentine!"
Soulwax - Dewaele brothers info + audio links
on
Mashed-Up Music
·
· Score: 1
Stephen and David Dewaele, a.k.a. The F##king Dewaele Brothers are the guys who made the Nirvana vs. Destiny's Child mix. (FYI, the soulwax.com site seems to be down at the moment of posting...) But they couldn't publish it on their great mix album 2 Many DJ's, because of copyright issues concerning the Nirvana track. Instead, they put a mix of Independent Women by Destiny's Child vs. Dreadlock Holiday by 10cc on the cd. Stephen and David are the founders of Soulwax, a Belgian rock band (more info can be found in the Belgian Pop & Rock Archives). Soulwax.co.uk is an English fan site. Some of the mixes were published there, but they seem to be removed due to bandwith problems. Stephen and David started their DJ project some years ago. Back then, they called themselves The Flying Dewaele Brothers. They can be heard regulary on the Belgian national alternative radio station, Studio Brussel. You can listen to a lot of full-length radio broadcasts by clicking on the links on this page. Recent ones are in Windows media format, older ones are Real Media.
Here in Belgium, we have one movie theater with a digital screen, Kinepolis Brussels.
I saw Toy Story 2 at that theater, and it was amazing! The movie was crisp clear, without the slightest deterioration or dust spots. I really think this is the way to go. But as already mentioned, the main reason for adapting to this technology will be to facilitate the distribution. So I expect digital screens to be the main way of showing movies in theaters in a few years.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks to Banksys I can withdraw money from any ATM in Belgium, no mather what bank hosts the ATM or which bank issued my bank card. I also can use my bank card to pay in all supermarkets and almost all other shops. I don't think much Belgians should be eager to give up this comfort.
And you mention it's a private company. I suppose you also would complain if it was implemented by the government, as in that case the government has all information on these transactions.
And Proton, an electronic purse for small purchases, is actually not connected to a single person. It's the electronic equivalent to a wallet with small change, and anybody can use such a card (you don't need a PIN code to use it).
The flash ad I got, accompanying the article in The Age: "Tired of your systems not talking?"
.Net XML Web Services.
An ad of... [drumroll] Microsoft! They were advertising their
Buy the T-shirt (view back) based on that Megatokyo episode at ThinkGeek.
I was satisfied with my BJC-5100 when I bought it (except for the fact I couldn't use it with Linux). But due to lack of drivers the printer completely stopped working when I upgraded from Win2k to WinXP. Their (helpdesk's) reaction: "bad luck..."
See my other comment for the full story.
As others have pointed out, Canon has other problems, in particular concerning driver support. But it is not only about support for Free operating systems...
Early in 2000, I bought a Canon BJC-5100. Looking back, that model apparently was at the end of its life cycle, and shops stopped selling it some time later. It was a Win-printer (all rendering done in the driver, not even support for printing plain text at the printer level), so I couldn't use it with Linux. But it worked fine in Windows 2000.
Later, when I upgraded to Windows XP, I came to the conclusion Canon dropped all support for my printer, and XP drivers did not exist. The Win2k drivers didn't work in XP. I contacted the Canon help desk, but they basically told me: "Bad luck..." So now I had a printer, bought 1.5 years earlier, which was totally useless.
If a manufacturer wants satisfied customers, it should support its older products, at least some time after they are discontinued.
I loved Shaolin Soccer, released in the US as Kung-Fu Soccer (which is a rather unsuitable title, it's not a kung-fu movie). Very funny, and a very good movie in general.
It's one of my favourite movies (my number one is Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain).
I don't believe windows come with a zip utility.
As the parent post mentioned, zip functionality is bundeled with WinXP and WinME. It's not a separate utility, but its integrated in Windows Explorer. In explorer, zip files open as normal directories (and by right clicking files in explorer you can zip them).
So you don't need WinZip to handle zip files. But Windows doesn't know about tar or gzip files, so you still have to use WinZip for those.
I remember seeing a board with four SID sockets once, you could use the original or upgraded chips.
That's the HardSID. The standard version has one SID socket, and the HardSID Quattro has four. ISA versions of these exist for some years now, and the PCI cards are promised to be released this month.
"The C-One website has not been updated since a few weeks," see this comment.
But the KDH Shop site says "This product will be in stock on Monday 17 February, 2003."
Don't we have teleportation already?
I mean - how else does the pizza get delivered to my door oven-fresh?
Oven-fresh pizza delivery?
Hey, cool. People from alternate realities are posting on Slashdot. Do you use teleportation techniques to post here?
This reminds me of 2 posts made a week ago in the Apple Hawks Madonna iPods thread: post 1 and follow-up.
/. to release this guy's information, as I suppose he has not posted from a cybercafé.
This Apple employee (posting as AC) started his post with "I'm posting this anonymously to protect my job. Not that they'll fire me or anything, but why risk it?"
I think, in theory, Apple could legally force
Did you notice the search button now says "Google Slashdot?"
One of the articles (besides the total nonsense "test test blablabla" kind) on brak.slashdot.org was "What search features would you like on Slashdot?" The tread gone now, as they mirrored slashdot.org to brak.slashdot.org. But the use of Google as search engine was one of the suggestions in this thread. And it seems they are testing that suggestion now.
Besides Kartoo, the NYT article mentions Vivísimo as a search engine providing an alternative way of viewing results. Vivísimo displays the results in a more classical text-oriented list, but with a tree of hierarchical folders alongside it. These folders provide refinements of your search with additional keywords.
It's definitely worth checking.
I considered subscribing to eMusic before, but the only reason holding me back is the bitrate of the MP3s. The songs you download are encoded at 128kbit.
I think it's fantastic they offer their songs in MP3 and not some proprietary format, and I would subscribe immediately if the songs were encoded at a higher bit rate.
Other civilizations will also go through evolution. So the earliest signals emitted will be the simple ones, and those will reach us first. If aliens detect signals from us at this moment, it will probably be radio or television emisions from decades ago. Marconi transmitted the first radio signal in 1901, but signals from those days are probably too weak to detect, even with technologies more advanced than ours. But earth's strongest transmitters like military radars are sending out signals since about 30 years.
Also see this item in the Seti@Home FAQ.
It should work if the requests come from different machines. I see a new distributed program here.
You can find even more projects here. And they're ordered in categories, including science, mathematics, puzzles and even art (I really like the Electric Sheep Project).
Bottomquark has reviewed a number of projects.
And here is a community site of people participating in such projects.
A few days ago, an article on The Brunching Shuttlecocks featured these three recipes. Really funny, and so true to life (my life at least...) Check that "Summertime Watermelon Sherbet," the "Salsa Fresca" and the "Omelet Florentine!"
Have a look at OSGi, the Open Services Gateway Initiative. This non-profit organisation works on open specifications for managed service delivery, and has broad industry support. There's a lot of information on the site, so it's certainly worth checking.
Stephen and David Dewaele, a.k.a. The F##king Dewaele Brothers are the guys who made the Nirvana vs. Destiny's Child mix. (FYI, the soulwax.com site seems to be down at the moment of posting...) But they couldn't publish it on their great mix album 2 Many DJ's, because of copyright issues concerning the Nirvana track. Instead, they put a mix of Independent Women by Destiny's Child vs. Dreadlock Holiday by 10cc on the cd.
Stephen and David are the founders of Soulwax, a Belgian rock band (more info can be found in the Belgian Pop & Rock Archives).
Soulwax.co.uk is an English fan site. Some of the mixes were published there, but they seem to be removed due to bandwith problems.
Stephen and David started their DJ project some years ago. Back then, they called themselves The Flying Dewaele Brothers. They can be heard regulary on the Belgian national alternative radio station, Studio Brussel.
You can listen to a lot of full-length radio broadcasts by clicking on the links on this page. Recent ones are in Windows media format, older ones are Real Media.
Modplug is far more robust IMO.
:-)
Thanx for the tip, I'm certainly going to test it. Looks neat.
(And BTW, I'm not Adam
Still, there were some decent players for the PC
In my opinion, the best player for PC was/is MOD4Win. Since the development has stopped, you can download an unlimited version for free.
Also interesting: the Oldsk00l MOD Player plugin for Winamp. Much better than Winamp's built in mod-support.
Instead of a Donation button (link to pdf!) on my website, I prefer the Brunching Shuttlecocks' system: The Oral Sex Donation System.
Here in Belgium, we have one movie theater with a digital screen, Kinepolis Brussels.
I saw Toy Story 2 at that theater, and it was amazing! The movie was crisp clear, without the slightest deterioration or dust spots. I really think this is the way to go. But as already mentioned, the main reason for adapting to this technology will be to facilitate the distribution. So I expect digital screens to be the main way of showing movies in theaters in a few years.
Thanks. Here's the direct link to the main page, as the Wayback Machine seems to have a little trouble with the load already:
How do Klingons compute?