I would guess that any given model of the iBook (for example the iBook 14" 1.25GHz I'm using) sold more units than any given model of ThinkPad or Latitude at the time (for example, a Latitude 100L)
The difference being that Dell sell about 17 different models of laptop, whereas Apple sell two iBook models and three models of PowerBook. I would also imagine that there's a dominant iBook model (14"?) and a dominant PowerBook model (15"?)
So, although Dell or IBM might sell more laptops overall, I bet there's a chance Apple have the highest selling single models.
Sorry, forget I said that. I got that one incredibly wrong. Although all of the clamshell iBooks were G3s, not all G3s were clamshell. In fact, nowhere near: there was a gap of almost three years between the release of the white iBook and the conversion to G4.
Though I'm surprised google didn't just ask to include wiki article summaries in their results directly, and then offer bandwidth help as a way to help wiki make it happen.
If I remember correctly, Google can already do this. Wikipedia has allowed it by licensing its content with the GNU Free Documentation License.
Of course, even then it would be good manners and in the spirit of Wikipedia and the GFDL to offer something back, like bandwidth.
In my experience, Apple UK is pretty bad too. I've had hardware problems with every mac I've had recently (my bad luck, I think), and every time it's been a real chore getting Apple to fix it, even with AppleCare. Each time, I've ended up having to call up someone in Customer Relations in the US and have them intervene.
The last time, my iBook screen went dead while it was just sitting on my desk. I was turned away from the Apple Centre in Kensington on the grounds that I'd bought the iBook at a different store (an Apple-authorised reseller). Apple's telephone support refused to even discuss the fault unless I paid an incident fee, which they assured me would be refunded if it turned out to be a warranty issue (which it did). That is NOT the way warranties are meant to work. My AppleCare-covered PM G4 workstation had a broken SuperDrive which destroyed the hardware test CD with a buzzsaw sound when Apple told me to try it. They wanted me to send them the machine for three weeks, just to replace a £30 part I could have fitted myself in less than a minute.
Apple US support is great. Apple UK support isn't. I'm hoping the presence of the London retail store might make things easier, at least for us London residents.
If I didn't rely so much on OS X and its pure superiority to everything else (IMHO), I'd never buy Apple hardware again.
Yeah, and what the hell are you meant to do In Case Of Fire?
Linksys boxes
on
WiFi Bridging?
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I just did something a bit like this. I live in an apartment in the same building as my office, but it's on the other side of the building. Minor detail: the building is L-shaped, and home and office are on the different branches.
I spent a month or so going through different options: looking for a third point on the other side of the street that could act as a line-of-sight reflector, investigating existing cable ducts with phone wire and that long range ethernet thing.
Finally I decided to get a directional antenna (this one) and a new Linksys WRT54G. I had an existing WAP54G which I use for the other end.
The WRT54G is in my hallway at the apartment, stuck to the wall above the entryphone. The WAP54G is in my office, with the antenna bolted to my office balcony. Using the Sveasoft firmware, I've boosted the signal a little and have established a ~2Mbps bridged link by blasting the signal through the apartments in the line of sight. The WRT54G acts as a repeater for my laptop. Since the office only has a 2Mbps line, it's good enough. The people in the apartments between might start having funny-shaped babies, but I've got free connectivity, and that's all that matters!
I'm sure it would be better if the home-side box had an external antenna, but it's intrusive enough in my hallway anyway. I'd also then be able to use the stock firmware. The Linksys boxes are relatively cheap and thanks to third-party firmware are extremely configurable.
As far as the 5 second break every 30 minutes goes, I'd guess it's some third-party box negotiating something (eg. NetBIOS or NTP or something) and interfering with the signal on your cable runs.
Not at all. It was just a sarcastic comment on the state of American media. I'm not the slightest bit surprised most of the world considers US residents ignorant with the incredibly biased, blinkered and subjective output spoonfed by the fourth estate.
This isn't just me thinking this. For example, Dan Rather gave an astonishing interview a couple of years back on freedom of the press, and he gave it to the BBC rather than the American media, knowing it wouldn't get heard in the USA. In fact, BBC's Newsnight has found a lot of really nasty dirt on the current USA administration, the elections, etc. over the past few years (mostly courtesy of Greg Palast, an American working in the UK), and this material has been largely ignored by the US media as if criticism of the establishment is unpatriotic! [Incidentally, Reporters Without Borders does consider the UK less free than the US, but at joint 22nd, the USA isn't as high as it should be with the much-vaunted First Amendment.]
As far as I know, the majority of US citizens abroad are anti-Bush. It's hard to swallow the Republican line (or to be fair, the Democrat line too) with so many independent and vocal sources pointing out how insincere and wrong it is. From the viewpoint of anywhere outside the USA, the current administration is horrific. Blair isn't much better, but at least the media doesn't treat him like a messiah (like Bush). Here, everything Blair does is analysed, criticised and vilified by the mainstream media. It must be pretty harsh to be on the receiving end, but he knows he won't get away with half of the stuff he'd probably want to do. It is the job of the press, and the duty of every citizen to question their leaders, in the hope of building a stronger and better republic.
America, as an ideal, is a wonderful thing. The original implementation was okay, but this release sucks. It's a creaking theocrasy with a self-proclaimed messiah leading it. It butts into everyone else's business (eg. election rigging and coup d'etats in South America, illegal invasions such as the one in Iraq right now) and then gets all uppity when anyone else comments on the state of its internal democratic process (as if 2000 didn't highlight the need for independent foreign election observers!) American resident citizens have totally lost the rights they claim to have on paper, and more to the point they're not aware of it. While Fox, ABC, CBS, NBC, etc. still say everything's okay, it must be, right? It's a real shame.
Of course, this is just my opinion. It happens to coincide quite a bit with a hell of a lot of other people out here in the free world.
[...] you can either abstain from voting, or vote for a third party candidate.
I normally agree with this totally, as I refuse to contribute to a mandate for someone I don't agree with, regardless of how much I hate the other guy. However, this time around I've gone to the effort of voting as an overseas absentee. Kerry's a prick, but I feel I have a responsibility to the rest of the planet to vote against Monkey Boy Cretin while he still has access to "Nooculer Weapons". IMHO, this election's an exception.
Fortunately, I live outside the American Continental Mind-control Zone, and so still retain freedom of thought.
One positive thing I can say about Bush's leadership is he's brought us all together in a common cause: conservatives, liberals and libertarians all want him gone.
I was born with a major case of scoliosis, and have had to have a pretty major operation to correct it. I agree with pretty much everything you say here.
It seems to me, however, that there are a lot of common fallacies with regards to back pain. I know that for me, swimming, sleeping on a hard bed, those kneeling chairs, etc. are all TERRIBLE for my back, no matter how good they are for other people. In fact, after any of those activities, I can barely walk.
With regards to chairs, I bought an Aeron a while ago, and now I have it shipped wherever I'm working. My existing work chair caused my neck to completely lock up, meaning I had to take three weeks off work. An hour of osteopathy followed by continuing use of the Aeron has solved that completely. This $1000 chair is worth more to me than the ten-thousands of dollars I've spent on computers over the past twenty years.
However, I would highly recommend spending an hour or so in any given chair before buying it, as choice of a chair is a very personal thing. At least make sure you can return it for a full refund. In my personal experience, a chair that's comfy in the shop will end up painful after an hour or so of programming. I would also point out the well-worn classics about wrist support, etc.
Now just wait for some clueless noob to trash me by trying to explain my back problems in one sentence, as if 30 years of personal experience and a dizzying number of medical experts' opinions means shit. Oh, how I love Slashdot.
Bottom line boils down to "Your Mileage May Vary".
1) Install a hardware firewall. Agreed - not needed.
Apart from the fact that Zone Alarm and all the other software firewalls for Joe Q. Public run on Windows. Anyone who relies on any security package running on Windows is really asking for it. You can't build good security on a wobbly foundation.
Regardless of the typical anti-Microsoft nonsense, I don't think anyone can really believe that Microsoft has a good or even acceptable track record for security or reliability, compared to either embedded systems or *nix boxes.
Hardware firewalls just seem prudent to me. Not because they're hardware, but because they're dedicated, non-Microsoft and usually not messed about with.
As for me, I just use Macs instead. A while ago I decided that the premium price of Apple kit was easily overwhelmed by the years of wasted time spent trying to get Microsoft products to work properly, reliably and securely.
Hey, I can't say it made me furious, or that it was any sort of hate-crime.. I don't get offended easily. The whole attitude just annoys me, in the kind of way that makes you bitch about it on Slashdot.
It's just that it's one of those things that pretty stupid to begin with, but the thing that gets me is that it's seen as acceptable to ostracise someone due to a particular genetic factor (redhead), but not for another (sex, race, etc.).
Hey, I'm all for ostracising people for things they've chosen to label themselves as (eg. "pro-wrestler", "lawyer", "republican", etc.) but not things they're stuck with.
Of course, it's not like it's a big deal, in comparison to the examples you've given, but it's an issue, and it sucks. It wouldn't even be the slightest problem at all if boneheads didn't make comments about redheads having tempers, and dumb epithets like "carrot-top", "Duracell", "Ginga", etc.
As far as the beer comment goes, no problem at all:-)
So, redheads have fiery tempers because people discriminate against them for having fiery tempers, which they have because people discriminate against them...
Anyway, I don't think me getting annoyed by years of blatant and stupid bigotry should really be reduced to me having a temper. I'm actually pretty calm in general, but obvious injustices bug me, as they damn well should do. I mean, if you're a black, lesbian, paraplegic, mentally-deficient grandmother, you get treated like a bloody martyr, but hey, let's dump on all the frigging carrot-tops. I mean, they're the minority, and they're obviously genetically subhuman so who gives a shit?
Let's just not reinforce idiotic and inaccurate stereotypes when they're not necessary. How about saying: "The gamers [...] are often treated badly in gaming circles"?
Awww. screw it. Just declare all the gingas all to be witches and burn the bloody lot. Tolerance won't be an issue because we destroyed them all! Wahey! Problem solved!
Incidentally, if you want a totally harmless stereotype, then consider the irony of an american bringing up an example of irony. How's that feel, then, ya dumb-shit, fat-ass, SUV-driving, gun-toting yankee hick?:-) Disclaimer: that wasn't a flame -- just an example of another completely unwarranted stereotype.
are often treated as the redheaded stepchildren in gaming circles.
I can't speak for other redheads, but this kind of comment really pisses me off. It really doesn't surprise me that redheads have a stereotype of having fiery tempers with this kind of bigotry being spouted publically and casually.
Totally agree, but it doesn't even need to take a week... overnight should be enough. Here in the UK, it's currently done as a paper ballot. The General Election results for the entire country are counted in time for the (new?) Prime Minister to move into 10 Downing Street the next day, rather than having a Prime-Minister-Elect for a few months. In most cases, the count is done within a few hours of the polls closing. The UK has a pretty big population, and I'd expect the ratio of banking/clerical staff available per voter is pretty much the same between the UK and the US, so it's a scalable thing.
Okay, so the Prime Minister isn't the Head of State, but the General Election actually elects all our representatives (MPs), and so completely replaces/revises the executive and legislative branches at the same time. As far as the head of state is concerned, the monarchy is transferred automatically at the moment of death of the current monarch. The Queen actually became queen while up a tree in Kenya.
Anyway, a paper/pen ballot could be designed whereby a preliminary count is performed using an optical reader, but keeps the readable slips for a manual check afterwards. It works for lottery tickets, so why not ballots?
Also, why the HELL do the voting machines cost $40 million for a few counties?!?
When I moved, I ditched my 46" TV and digital cable for a 3" black and white portable, the idea being that if a TV is battery powered, it doesn't need to be licenced (well, that's the gist of it. It's more complex than that.) I have a 15" LCD (Apple Studio Display) for my PS2 for watching DVDs and playing games.
I've found that although I was watching 6-8 hours a day of TV, I now watch about 1 hour a month, and that's when I'm staying with friends, and I don't miss it in the slightest.
There's about one show that was on BBC which I missed: 24. Since the third season is on Sky, I now just use BitTorrent, and will buy the DVDs when they come out.
The license fee is a regressive tax, that was appropriate while the BBC was still a public service broadcaster, as opposed to an over-commercialised 600-pound gorilla. TV Licencing are a bunch of authoritarian bullies. I've also written a rather lengthy note on this issue to bbccharterreview@culture.gsi.gov.uk, in the hope that the BBC's upcoming charter review by the government might do some good.
Actually, it's even more obvious. In the original GTA, Liberty, Vice and San Andreas were three different cities, so San Andreas is the most sensible next step.
However, sense and marketing rarely go hand-in-hand.
While working at HP I did a NET SEND command to get whoever was logged into one of the servers I was using to log out of PCAnywhere. Unfortunately, I missed one of the parameters and sent the message to everyone in the login domain (ie. a few thousand users).
After hitting ENTER, I hear a hundred Windows 'dings', and everyone in cubicle-land starts prairiedogging. I got a few nasty replies asking who I was, and a very nice one saying "Don't worry: once I sent 'I know you don't have any pants on' to most of HP Belgium".
Worst thing was, the guy clogging up the server was my cubicle-mate who'd gone out to get coffee.
Despite his close-call experience on 9/11, MacFarlane regrets that "Rhode to Rhode Island" was cut from the DVD because it contains an Osama bin Laden joke - made well before 9/11/01.
IGNFF: What was the issue about the Osama Bin Laden joke, which made it to air originally, was excised from the re-air, and was excised from the disc?
MACFARLANE: Yeah, again, that was one that the more I field this question, the more I think it should have been on. I was kind of neutral. They said, "Listen, we think we might cut this out," and I said, "Well, I don't know." [...] Yeah, my argument was, "Well, look. I missed that flight by 10 minutes and I'm okay with putting it on." I don't know. There were two arguments. There was the argument that, well, you know, it's an interesting piece of entertainment history and it was made two years before this happened, which I tend to agree with. It's just - take it for what it is.
Better than that... in some cases, the decrease in context switching (among other things) can give a greater than 100% increase. I've seen such a thing happen before.
Slashdot Mirror
I would guess that any given model of the iBook (for example the iBook 14" 1.25GHz I'm using) sold more units than any given model of ThinkPad or Latitude at the time (for example, a Latitude 100L)
The difference being that Dell sell about 17 different models of laptop, whereas Apple sell two iBook models and three models of PowerBook. I would also imagine that there's a dominant iBook model (14"?) and a dominant PowerBook model (15"?)
So, although Dell or IBM might sell more laptops overall, I bet there's a chance Apple have the highest selling single models.
Sorry, forget I said that. I got that one incredibly wrong. Although all of the clamshell iBooks were G3s, not all G3s were clamshell. In fact, nowhere near: there was a gap of almost three years between the release of the white iBook and the conversion to G4.
It's been a long day.
A more general name for non-clamshell iBooks (at the moment) is iBook G4. All of the clamshell iBooks were G3.
If I remember correctly, Google can already do this. Wikipedia has allowed it by licensing its content with the GNU Free Documentation License.
Of course, even then it would be good manners and in the spirit of Wikipedia and the GFDL to offer something back, like bandwidth.
In my experience, Apple UK is pretty bad too. I've had hardware problems with every mac I've had recently (my bad luck, I think), and every time it's been a real chore getting Apple to fix it, even with AppleCare. Each time, I've ended up having to call up someone in Customer Relations in the US and have them intervene.
The last time, my iBook screen went dead while it was just sitting on my desk. I was turned away from the Apple Centre in Kensington on the grounds that I'd bought the iBook at a different store (an Apple-authorised reseller). Apple's telephone support refused to even discuss the fault unless I paid an incident fee, which they assured me would be refunded if it turned out to be a warranty issue (which it did). That is NOT the way warranties are meant to work. My AppleCare-covered PM G4 workstation had a broken SuperDrive which destroyed the hardware test CD with a buzzsaw sound when Apple told me to try it. They wanted me to send them the machine for three weeks, just to replace a £30 part I could have fitted myself in less than a minute.
Apple US support is great. Apple UK support isn't. I'm hoping the presence of the London retail store might make things easier, at least for us London residents.
If I didn't rely so much on OS X and its pure superiority to everything else (IMHO), I'd never buy Apple hardware again.
Yeah, and what the hell are you meant to do In Case Of Fire?
I just did something a bit like this. I live in an apartment in the same building as my office, but it's on the other side of the building. Minor detail: the building is L-shaped, and home and office are on the different branches.
I spent a month or so going through different options: looking for a third point on the other side of the street that could act as a line-of-sight reflector, investigating existing cable ducts with phone wire and that long range ethernet thing.
Finally I decided to get a directional antenna (this one) and a new Linksys WRT54G. I had an existing WAP54G which I use for the other end.
The WRT54G is in my hallway at the apartment, stuck to the wall above the entryphone. The WAP54G is in my office, with the antenna bolted to my office balcony. Using the Sveasoft firmware, I've boosted the signal a little and have established a ~2Mbps bridged link by blasting the signal through the apartments in the line of sight. The WRT54G acts as a repeater for my laptop. Since the office only has a 2Mbps line, it's good enough. The people in the apartments between might start having funny-shaped babies, but I've got free connectivity, and that's all that matters!
I'm sure it would be better if the home-side box had an external antenna, but it's intrusive enough in my hallway anyway. I'd also then be able to use the stock firmware. The Linksys boxes are relatively cheap and thanks to third-party firmware are extremely configurable.
As far as the 5 second break every 30 minutes goes, I'd guess it's some third-party box negotiating something (eg. NetBIOS or NTP or something) and interfering with the signal on your cable runs.
Not at all. It was just a sarcastic comment on the state of American media. I'm not the slightest bit surprised most of the world considers US residents ignorant with the incredibly biased, blinkered and subjective output spoonfed by the fourth estate.
This isn't just me thinking this. For example, Dan Rather gave an astonishing interview a couple of years back on freedom of the press, and he gave it to the BBC rather than the American media, knowing it wouldn't get heard in the USA. In fact, BBC's Newsnight has found a lot of really nasty dirt on the current USA administration, the elections, etc. over the past few years (mostly courtesy of Greg Palast, an American working in the UK), and this material has been largely ignored by the US media as if criticism of the establishment is unpatriotic! [Incidentally, Reporters Without Borders does consider the UK less free than the US, but at joint 22nd, the USA isn't as high as it should be with the much-vaunted First Amendment.]
As far as I know, the majority of US citizens abroad are anti-Bush. It's hard to swallow the Republican line (or to be fair, the Democrat line too) with so many independent and vocal sources pointing out how insincere and wrong it is. From the viewpoint of anywhere outside the USA, the current administration is horrific. Blair isn't much better, but at least the media doesn't treat him like a messiah (like Bush). Here, everything Blair does is analysed, criticised and vilified by the mainstream media. It must be pretty harsh to be on the receiving end, but he knows he won't get away with half of the stuff he'd probably want to do. It is the job of the press, and the duty of every citizen to question their leaders, in the hope of building a stronger and better republic.
America, as an ideal, is a wonderful thing. The original implementation was okay, but this release sucks. It's a creaking theocrasy with a self-proclaimed messiah leading it. It butts into everyone else's business (eg. election rigging and coup d'etats in South America, illegal invasions such as the one in Iraq right now) and then gets all uppity when anyone else comments on the state of its internal democratic process (as if 2000 didn't highlight the need for independent foreign election observers!) American resident citizens have totally lost the rights they claim to have on paper, and more to the point they're not aware of it. While Fox, ABC, CBS, NBC, etc. still say everything's okay, it must be, right? It's a real shame.
Of course, this is just my opinion. It happens to coincide quite a bit with a hell of a lot of other people out here in the free world.
I normally agree with this totally, as I refuse to contribute to a mandate for someone I don't agree with, regardless of how much I hate the other guy. However, this time around I've gone to the effort of voting as an overseas absentee. Kerry's a prick, but I feel I have a responsibility to the rest of the planet to vote against Monkey Boy Cretin while he still has access to "Nooculer Weapons". IMHO, this election's an exception.
Fortunately, I live outside the American Continental Mind-control Zone, and so still retain freedom of thought.
One positive thing I can say about Bush's leadership is he's brought us all together in a common cause: conservatives, liberals and libertarians all want him gone.
Presumably it'll be climate-controlled to prevent the wax crayon melting.
I was born with a major case of scoliosis, and have had to have a pretty major operation to correct it. I agree with pretty much everything you say here.
It seems to me, however, that there are a lot of common fallacies with regards to back pain. I know that for me, swimming, sleeping on a hard bed, those kneeling chairs, etc. are all TERRIBLE for my back, no matter how good they are for other people. In fact, after any of those activities, I can barely walk.
With regards to chairs, I bought an Aeron a while ago, and now I have it shipped wherever I'm working. My existing work chair caused my neck to completely lock up, meaning I had to take three weeks off work. An hour of osteopathy followed by continuing use of the Aeron has solved that completely. This $1000 chair is worth more to me than the ten-thousands of dollars I've spent on computers over the past twenty years.
However, I would highly recommend spending an hour or so in any given chair before buying it, as choice of a chair is a very personal thing. At least make sure you can return it for a full refund. In my personal experience, a chair that's comfy in the shop will end up painful after an hour or so of programming. I would also point out the well-worn classics about wrist support, etc.
Now just wait for some clueless noob to trash me by trying to explain my back problems in one sentence, as if 30 years of personal experience and a dizzying number of medical experts' opinions means shit. Oh, how I love Slashdot.
Bottom line boils down to "Your Mileage May Vary".
Apart from the fact that Zone Alarm and all the other software firewalls for Joe Q. Public run on Windows. Anyone who relies on any security package running on Windows is really asking for it. You can't build good security on a wobbly foundation.
Regardless of the typical anti-Microsoft nonsense, I don't think anyone can really believe that Microsoft has a good or even acceptable track record for security or reliability, compared to either embedded systems or *nix boxes.
Hardware firewalls just seem prudent to me. Not because they're hardware, but because they're dedicated, non-Microsoft and usually not messed about with.
As for me, I just use Macs instead. A while ago I decided that the premium price of Apple kit was easily overwhelmed by the years of wasted time spent trying to get Microsoft products to work properly, reliably and securely.
Hey, I can't say it made me furious, or that it was any sort of hate-crime.. I don't get offended easily. The whole attitude just annoys me, in the kind of way that makes you bitch about it on Slashdot.
:-)
It's just that it's one of those things that pretty stupid to begin with, but the thing that gets me is that it's seen as acceptable to ostracise someone due to a particular genetic factor (redhead), but not for another (sex, race, etc.).
Hey, I'm all for ostracising people for things they've chosen to label themselves as (eg. "pro-wrestler", "lawyer", "republican", etc.) but not things they're stuck with.
Of course, it's not like it's a big deal, in comparison to the examples you've given, but it's an issue, and it sucks. It wouldn't even be the slightest problem at all if boneheads didn't make comments about redheads having tempers, and dumb epithets like "carrot-top", "Duracell", "Ginga", etc.
As far as the beer comment goes, no problem at all
So, redheads have fiery tempers because people discriminate against them for having fiery tempers, which they have because people discriminate against them...
Anyway, I don't think me getting annoyed by years of blatant and stupid bigotry should really be reduced to me having a temper. I'm actually pretty calm in general, but obvious injustices bug me, as they damn well should do. I mean, if you're a black, lesbian, paraplegic, mentally-deficient grandmother, you get treated like a bloody martyr, but hey, let's dump on all the frigging carrot-tops. I mean, they're the minority, and they're obviously genetically subhuman so who gives a shit?
Let's just not reinforce idiotic and inaccurate stereotypes when they're not necessary. How about saying: "The gamers [...] are often treated badly in gaming circles"?
Awww. screw it. Just declare all the gingas all to be witches and burn the bloody lot. Tolerance won't be an issue because we destroyed them all! Wahey! Problem solved!
Incidentally, if you want a totally harmless stereotype, then consider the irony of an american bringing up an example of irony. How's that feel, then, ya dumb-shit, fat-ass, SUV-driving, gun-toting yankee hick? :-) Disclaimer: that wasn't a flame -- just an example of another completely unwarranted stereotype.
I can't speak for other redheads, but this kind of comment really pisses me off. It really doesn't surprise me that redheads have a stereotype of having fiery tempers with this kind of bigotry being spouted publically and casually.
Totally agree, but it doesn't even need to take a week... overnight should be enough. Here in the UK, it's currently done as a paper ballot. The General Election results for the entire country are counted in time for the (new?) Prime Minister to move into 10 Downing Street the next day, rather than having a Prime-Minister-Elect for a few months. In most cases, the count is done within a few hours of the polls closing. The UK has a pretty big population, and I'd expect the ratio of banking/clerical staff available per voter is pretty much the same between the UK and the US, so it's a scalable thing.
Okay, so the Prime Minister isn't the Head of State, but the General Election actually elects all our representatives (MPs), and so completely replaces/revises the executive and legislative branches at the same time. As far as the head of state is concerned, the monarchy is transferred automatically at the moment of death of the current monarch. The Queen actually became queen while up a tree in Kenya.
Anyway, a paper/pen ballot could be designed whereby a preliminary count is performed using an optical reader, but keeps the readable slips for a manual check afterwards. It works for lottery tickets, so why not ballots?
Also, why the HELL do the voting machines cost $40 million for a few counties?!?
When I moved, I ditched my 46" TV and digital cable for a 3" black and white portable, the idea being that if a TV is battery powered, it doesn't need to be licenced (well, that's the gist of it. It's more complex than that.) I have a 15" LCD (Apple Studio Display) for my PS2 for watching DVDs and playing games.
I've found that although I was watching 6-8 hours a day of TV, I now watch about 1 hour a month, and that's when I'm staying with friends, and I don't miss it in the slightest.
There's about one show that was on BBC which I missed: 24. Since the third season is on Sky, I now just use BitTorrent, and will buy the DVDs when they come out.
The license fee is a regressive tax, that was appropriate while the BBC was still a public service broadcaster, as opposed to an over-commercialised 600-pound gorilla. TV Licencing are a bunch of authoritarian bullies. I've also written a rather lengthy note on this issue to bbccharterreview@culture.gsi.gov.uk, in the hope that the BBC's upcoming charter review by the government might do some good.
Actually, it's even more obvious. In the original GTA, Liberty, Vice and San Andreas were three different cities, so San Andreas is the most sensible next step.
However, sense and marketing rarely go hand-in-hand.
While working at HP I did a NET SEND command to get whoever was logged into one of the servers I was using to log out of PCAnywhere. Unfortunately, I missed one of the parameters and sent the message to everyone in the login domain (ie. a few thousand users).
After hitting ENTER, I hear a hundred Windows 'dings', and everyone in cubicle-land starts prairiedogging. I got a few nasty replies asking who I was, and a very nice one saying "Don't worry: once I sent 'I know you don't have any pants on' to most of HP Belgium".
Worst thing was, the guy clogging up the server was my cubicle-mate who'd gone out to get coffee.
Not strictly accurate: http://www.bupipedream.com/091903/release/r1.htm
Also, http://filmforce.ign.com/articles/429/429628p7.htm l:
Heh.. you don't even need xpdf, cut and paste, or third-party plugins. Just activate the Accessibility functions in Reader 6.0.
Which timezone is that 8pm in? The Javascript doesn't specify, so I guess those Australasians will get it first ;)
Better than that... in some cases, the decrease in context switching (among other things) can give a greater than 100% increase. I've seen such a thing happen before.
this?
I remember these transparent plastic cans with standard aluminium top at least ten years ago, selling here in the UK.
AFAICR, the drink itself was foul.
(incidentally, my friend didn't actually die. He woke up on his own about 18 hours later)