As far as I know, the 100UKP a year that we pay goes to the government as a license for our owning a TV, and the government seperately funds the BBC. Although this effectively means the license fee funds the BBC, it also means that we are not "subscribing" to the BBC, we a buying a licence to own a TV, and through that funding a public service provided by the government, which I think is fair enough.
If you have private healthcare then you may never make use of (or intend to use) the NHS, but you don't get a tax rebate for this, its the same with the BBC.
Linux, in most cases is current just not ready for the desktop, or rather, the desktop isn't ready for linux.
Most universities now teach Java to comp sci students (well they do here in the UK), and java is multiplatform, so hopefully when these java knowing people start to filter down to writing apps, there will be a few more platform independent apps.
A lot of very user friendly systems I have seen designed, have been done so in java, including the software that powers those absurdly expensive quiz games you see in bars these days, although they run it on top of win2k (i know this cos I crashed one and watched in reboot), it could quite easily run on java.
I think machines in general are fast enough to run java software and a decent pace now- and this could be very beneficial for linux (also note IBM are big advocates of both java and linux).
haven't you ever seen the film hackers? one day EVERY machine will be interfaced by flying around a colourful 3D virtual environment, and admins really will have to *chase* hackers out, that'd be cool actually, mod_counterstrike for apache then you could just sit there with a sniper rifle and pick 'em off.
No more difficult than "If you think Microsoft is evil, don't use it's software", but how many people do you know who think Fast Food is bad, and Microsoft is probably evil, yet they still spend half their time eating in McDonalds and the other half using Windows, MS Office, et al?
Why does this happen? Simple, the avergae person is stupid, the average IQ is 100, whhat does that say about the state of our species, not a lot;P
I need more sleepzzzzzzzz
good point, in fact even just having a wireless LAN is great, sit outside in the sun with laptop reading slashdot and stuff.
still, where I'm moving in October they have wireless LAN style net access in parts of the city centre, sitting in a pavement cafe with a coffee and/. anyone?
Nope, my linux box doesn't "do" blue screens, win2k doesn't seem to either and my 1 remaining 98 box has had some registry editing done and now gives lovely Red Screen Of Deaths every 5 minutes, they scare everyone else more when they're red cos they haven't seen them before and we all know red = danger.
Interestingly, Lockheed Martin Corp. (UK division) uses CMM to assess all of it's software developers, I know a member of a team that is flying out to Washington to do a CMM assessment of a company out there for a whole week.
They actually have people emplyed who specialise in CMM and a great deal of planning goes into it all. But then when it has a military application I guess you can never be too careful.
how about a "boner" indicator to gauge how excited the user in front of the machine is, expect it to increase massively when someone mentions "VI", "kernel hacking" or "CowboyNeal" and decrease when someone (your girlfriend?) interrupts you from your coding.
or maybe a something to tell how open your eyes are (as a percentage of fully open) and give a wanring beep when you fall asleep at the terminal (maybe this could be inverted whilst at work and warn you if your eyes reach more than 10% open except when you're refreshing/.)
a wheel-clamper is someone who goes round with a big (often yellow) metal thingy, which they lock onto the wheels of your car or other vehicle so that you can't drive it away, they then usually charge you a fee to take it off.
Obviously they can only do this if you have illegally parked your vehicle, say in a no-stopping zone, or if you are in a car park and haven't actually paid for a ticket.
Interestingly, did you ask out of sarcasm, because you hadn't heard that term for them or because you don't have them where you live? They are all over the place here, bah.
Also we got lots of new CCTV cameras now, all over town in big ominous black pods, yay.
heh. my schools IT department told me that the monitors on our computers only had 4 megs of video ram, so we couldn't look at big pictures on them and made me go down to the library where they had bigger (17" instead of 14") monitors with "more ram". does that mean that any insect that wandered on site deserved straight A's?
I got dragged out straight after the exam, and taken to a talk with some high up management guy, who started asking me questions and didnt understand a word of what I was saying, so they got their IT "expert" in , who didn't understand either. The weird thing is, all this was because I was accused of writing a website (completely external to the college systems) which "exposed" the fact that some of our teachers were incompetent (including the programming lecturer, who didn't know any programming languages except COBOL).
Still they never actually noticed that I had done anything to *their* network, because I covered my tracks, usually they ended up saying "theres a virus on the network" and reformatting a good 30 computers, it was fun to watch.
they wanted to expel me for the website tho, because apparently I was not allowed to say anything *bad* about the college.
Oh, and the principal has just resigned for selling a building for development which the college didnt actually own, then spending all the money before anyonre realised. Plonker.
I dunno what my point is, don't even know if I have one, I'm just bored so I feel like "contributing", yay.
Not actually entirely correct, as you are assuming the sonar is based at the target, in which case it would indeed be useless.
Sonar a sizeable distance offshore would detect the weapon as it passed, and using various techniques could determine its speed and direction. If this sonar was far enough offshore then there would be sufficient warning to do something about it, the only question is what?
Slashdot Mirror
As far as I know, the 100UKP a year that we pay goes to the government as a license for our owning a TV, and the government seperately funds the BBC. Although this effectively means the license fee funds the BBC, it also means that we are not "subscribing" to the BBC, we a buying a licence to own a TV, and through that funding a public service provided by the government, which I think is fair enough.
If you have private healthcare then you may never make use of (or intend to use) the NHS, but you don't get a tax rebate for this, its the same with the BBC.
Linux, in most cases is current just not ready for the desktop, or rather, the desktop isn't ready for linux.
Most universities now teach Java to comp sci students (well they do here in the UK), and java is multiplatform, so hopefully when these java knowing people start to filter down to writing apps, there will be a few more platform independent apps.
A lot of very user friendly systems I have seen designed, have been done so in java, including the software that powers those absurdly expensive quiz games you see in bars these days, although they run it on top of win2k (i know this cos I crashed one and watched in reboot), it could quite easily run on java.
I think machines in general are fast enough to run java software and a decent pace now- and this could be very beneficial for linux (also note IBM are big advocates of both java and linux).
haven't you ever seen the film hackers? one day EVERY machine will be interfaced by flying around a colourful 3D virtual environment, and admins really will have to *chase* hackers out, that'd be cool actually, mod_counterstrike for apache then you could just sit there with a sniper rifle and pick 'em off.
Why does this happen? Simple, the avergae person is stupid, the average IQ is 100, whhat does that say about the state of our species, not a lot ;P
I need more sleepzzzzzzzz
what we need is DivXCD ;-)
good point, in fact even just having a wireless LAN is great, sit outside in the sun with laptop reading slashdot and stuff. still, where I'm moving in October they have wireless LAN style net access in parts of the city centre, sitting in a pavement cafe with a coffee and /. anyone?
Nope, my linux box doesn't "do" blue screens, win2k doesn't seem to either and my 1 remaining 98 box has had some registry editing done and now gives lovely Red Screen Of Deaths every 5 minutes, they scare everyone else more when they're red cos they haven't seen them before and we all know red = danger.
They actually have people emplyed who specialise in CMM and a great deal of planning goes into it all. But then when it has a military application I guess you can never be too careful.
how about a "boner" indicator to gauge how excited the user in front of the machine is, expect it to increase massively when someone mentions "VI", "kernel hacking" or "CowboyNeal" and decrease when someone (your girlfriend?) interrupts you from your coding.
or maybe a something to tell how open your eyes are (as a percentage of fully open) and give a wanring beep when you fall asleep at the terminal (maybe this could be inverted whilst at work and warn you if your eyes reach more than 10% open except when you're refreshing /.)
a wheel-clamper is someone who goes round with a big (often yellow) metal thingy, which they lock onto the wheels of your car or other vehicle so that you can't drive it away, they then usually charge you a fee to take it off. Obviously they can only do this if you have illegally parked your vehicle, say in a no-stopping zone, or if you are in a car park and haven't actually paid for a ticket. Interestingly, did you ask out of sarcasm, because you hadn't heard that term for them or because you don't have them where you live? They are all over the place here, bah. Also we got lots of new CCTV cameras now, all over town in big ominous black pods, yay.
pleeeaasse....
either that or the whole universe is leaning slightly to one side, like a bad pool table
--
Barnaby Mannerings (heh) http://www.wasd.co.uk
(before you cry: read the BOFH)
heh. my schools IT department told me that the monitors on our computers only had 4 megs of video ram, so we couldn't look at big pictures on them and made me go down to the library where they had bigger (17" instead of 14") monitors with "more ram". does that mean that any insect that wandered on site deserved straight A's?
I got dragged out straight after the exam, and taken to a talk with some high up management guy, who started asking me questions and didnt understand a word of what I was saying, so they got their IT "expert" in , who didn't understand either. The weird thing is, all this was because I was accused of writing a website (completely external to the college systems) which "exposed" the fact that some of our teachers were incompetent (including the programming lecturer, who didn't know any programming languages except COBOL).
Still they never actually noticed that I had done anything to *their* network, because I covered my tracks, usually they ended up saying "theres a virus on the network" and reformatting a good 30 computers, it was fun to watch.
they wanted to expel me for the website tho, because apparently I was not allowed to say anything *bad* about the college.
Oh, and the principal has just resigned for selling a building for development which the college didnt actually own, then spending all the money before anyonre realised. Plonker.
I dunno what my point is, don't even know if I have one, I'm just bored so I feel like "contributing", yay.
Not actually entirely correct, as you are assuming the sonar is based at the target, in which case it would indeed be useless. Sonar a sizeable distance offshore would detect the weapon as it passed, and using various techniques could determine its speed and direction. If this sonar was far enough offshore then there would be sufficient warning to do something about it, the only question is what?