"they had a similar product it was called the DD64(Disc Drive 64)"
My favourite N64 screw up was the RAM pack. Why the hell not just put it in the console in the first place?
That said, they could have made a Mega CD. Or 32x:) In terms of hardware mess-ups, Nintendo is probably the best at it. Sony just have their heads up their arses releasing a console with the same control pads, two ports and you still have to arse around with memory cards. At least Sega were simply short-sighted, rather than arrogant:)
The ones to watch out for are ARM. They have a tendency to sneak their way into practically everything: cars, mobile phones, PSIONs, even your Gameboy Advance.
They have their sticky thumbs in a lot of different pies and because of the practical collapse of PSION handhelds, are probably itching to get back into the palmtop market.
Oh, they're also in your iPod too, and quite possibly your car:)
Warranty be damned! Having to sit under a direct light source all the time is such a hassslleee. My only worry is how much it sucks out of the battery life.
Personally, I have nothing to hide, and if police wants me to open up my data I've nothing against it
That's the biggest worry I have with RIP. Law abiding citizens who aren't busy fiddling their tax returns or trafficking stolen mobile phones don't mind being watched. I don't honestly care. I have nothing to hide and if they want to read about my plans to go out on a Friday night, so be it:) As long as they are using the technology to arrest criminals.
However, RIPs deal with losing encryption keys equating to the same as not presenting them because you don't want to turns over quite possibly our most fundamental legal belief: You are innocent, until proven guilty. This is the exact opposite: You are guilty until you prove otherwise.
Good point about knowing they're tracking you BTW:)
My suggestion: Live with it and use crypto where you can.
Unless you live in the UK where our then Home Secretary managed to push through a bill (which sounds astonishingly like the one in Enemy of the State) that allows the government and the police to do all the snooping they like. It's not like it wasn't happening anyway, but this made it legal.
The real kicker though, is that anyone who encrypts their data has to decrypt it if the police say so. If you don't, then you get locked up. The problem is, the law makes no distinction about refusing to decrypt, and not being able to decrypt. If you lose your keys, then you can get banged up. The government were planning a national database of encryption keys where you had to submit your own. I don't know where that is ATM.
Moral of the story: If you live in the UK, don't bother encrypting either. They'll just get their grubby hands on it if they want to.
"34 slinkies soldered together." Can't be that tough, surely? It's made difficult by all the supports this guy has come up with in order to elevate the slinky. If you wanted it to make pretty patterns (not lie on the floor lifeless), you could probably just wrap it around a large metal tube. Then you might get some interesting noises as the slinky vibrated around it.
I did run a check on the Guinness Records site to see if there was any record for the longest slinky, but apparentely not. Anyone want a quick and easy record to break?:)
Absolutely. I stumped up the cash from Amazon.co.uk for a Revo, which fell over half it's price down to £100 (164 Euros or $142). Bargin.
It's also a cut being reflected on other sites, which leads me to believe it's come from Psion itself. It would make sense: their share price along with their market share is taking a bashing and the best way to get sales is to undercut even the unuseable end of the Palm range.
I remember reading in New Scientist (a few years ago now) that actually evolution might be speeding up. Both prospective parents now work in a society where work takes up a large chunk of your life, and contraception reduces unwanted pregnancies. We pick and choose when we want children.
The theory was that only the parents who had the skill or time-management abilities to get their work done sufficentely would try for a child. Therefore, the children produced will be smarter and have better time-management and ability to cope with stress.
I don't think it mentioned actual physical evolution though. I'm still waiting on those wings.
As for misrepresentation, I can only base any opinion by the link presented by the story. I'm sorry if the story posted is unfairly biased.
As to wheather I expect the judge not to apply the law, yes I do expect he should rule as the law is printed, and as he sees fit. However, I also think that perhaps he should make it his problem to highlight the fact that the law being presented was passed well before the technology it's being applied to. Times change. Society changes along with it. Why can't we import games? Why can't we import DVDs? Why can't we have our pick of the global market? Why are companies allowed to dictate this? It sets a precedence for which the bully boy companies can follow up on.
Do remember the bottom line:
The money from imports all goes to the same place, in the end.
It's a typical judgement for the UK courts to rule to the absolute letter in cases such as this. Problem is, the judges don't appear to have a firm grasp of the implications caused by these rulings. Most law has always been one step behind technology, but the problem we have now is that tech is a truly global market.
Marketing suits have been trying for years to stifle shopping internationally, in case people begin to realise that their countries are being screwed in comparison to others. This case affects games importing (because we aren't allowed to buy what we want say the suits) but DVDs as well (because it would absolutely *crush* the movie sector, say the suits) and anything else the marketing guys want to stifle. It's not like dealing contraband, it's off-the-shelf products.
My worry is that this trend will continue, even though it, in some cases, directly contravenes law. Here in the UK, our car prices are drastically higher than on the continent, and certain car manufacturers make it very difficult to buy your car abroad. This is despite the face the EU trade laws explicitely say otherwise. If companies are flauting the *law*, how exactly can we stop them?
Koolance have been doing this for the past year or so. Their cases look *alright*, but not great:( They have two models, the 'silent' model and the overclockers model. Both are at least "pretty decent." [H]ard OCP have a review of the first one, and I think the overclockers model too.
Claymation actually demands some pretty high-tech stuff nowadays, at least at Aardman. During an Open Day visit to Bristol University's Computer Science course, they showed off some stuff they had built for Aardman (who are based in Bristol) to use. Instead of still cameras, for Chicken Run they needed cameras which panned across the landscape. Now, when you think about this, it would actually be very hard to do. The camera operator would have to calculate how far and in what direction the camera would need to move for every frame of the shot. So Bristol built a mobile arm holding a camera which runs on tracks, and software which could be used to show when and where the camera had to be in specific positions. The software would then interpolate aall the stuff inbetween.
Could a judge force a company to reveal information in open court that would normally come under the data protection act?
I should have thought so. Not even our government would be stupid enough to create a law to impede the courts being presented with important evidence;)
I took your criticism (hey, it's a flaw:) )to heart, and took it upon myself to clear my name. The Data Protection Act is one of the few good government websites we have (information? I can get to easily? Goodness!) and for all those who don't know about it, the rules are outlined concisely here. H'anyway, it says that the information must be kept secure (that's what I meant;) ) and confirms your point on transferal to countries that don't have adequate protection. This must be possibly the only law we have in the UK that actually protects the rights of technology users, rather than hinders it. Hooray!
I'd like to know that myself. Here in the UK we have a law called the Data Protection Act, which means that all data that a company has on you they must take "reasonable" steps to protect it. So a small business can't be held accountable if someone steals their server or something. But it also means that companies can not pass your information onto third-parties without your express consent. Every form you fill in in the UK will have a box on the bottom saying "Check this if you do not want your information passed onto companies we think will be of interest to you." And any clever person *always* ticks this box:) Once this happens, not even the police can get the information without a court order. I remember a case in the UK where AOL handed over information on one of it's users to the cops without an order, and were sucessfully sued over it.
I assume there is a law like this in the States, which surely Robertson must have broken if he simply handed over the information?
I can see why he would like to see the Word format disappear into something altogether more open, but it's a bit too late for that.
Fact: MS has the stronghold over business machines.
Fact: MS Office has the stronghold in the office suite market.
Fact: The people who send out MS Word documents blindly probably don't know that there is anything but Windows and Word.
The solution is not with the mailers. These users don't understand why other people can't read Word files ("Everyone I know does. And I can. So everyone must do.") and probably don't even know how to save it to something more compatible. We can't change the practices of these people for a reason that seems very obscure to them. The "MS Word only" mentaltality of CV submission is another matter, however. Bosses should know better.
The ball, therefore, lies firmly in the software side of the court. That leaves us with two players (and possibly some more sport analagies if we're lucky!), Microsoft and, well, The Rest of the Software World. Either Microsoft open up their standard, or everyone else rushes to reverse-engineer the.doc file. Problem is, neither choice is going to happen. MS makes it difficult to reverse-engineer everything, and they refuse to open up their source (even under the order of the US courts for pity's sake!).
So, nothing will change. It's one thing to speak evangelically about something, it's another thing to get any result (politicans anyone?)
I have more faith in a well recognised brand of soundcards which rate "at least decent" (quote source: Me). Honestly, though, OEMs, especially in their notebooks, don't even tell you what make of card is inside the box. That leads me to believe that it can only be worse than a Creative piece of kit.
Analogue is a old blurry beast which we must destroy. How any company can believe that it can revive a dying sector which is wholly based on analogue transmission is beyond me. LCD is flatter and uses less power. That doesn't really bother me (hell, this space rock's enviornment is on it's way out too:) ) and the desk space I'd save I'd fill up with old magazines/important college work never to be see again/toast growing new organisms. *But* the crystal clear digital transmission afforded by new LCD monitors interests me a great deal. The image quality is a lot better than a VGA in and CRT monitors can't offer that.
Running Windows 98 under VPC is cheating:) I want full-on hardware support so I can play games! Hmmmm, what if the announcement is that OS X will soon fully support Direct X or something like that? Gaming on a TiBook...Mmmmmm... *dream dream*
Re:Only a few more days...
on
Apple PDA?
·
· Score: 1
Flat panel iMacs I am almost certain will be announced (eagle-eyed people have spotted that The Apple Store has slapped a 7 day delivery time on the iMac, upped from three where the rest of the stock is at. 7 days puts the order after Jobs' keynote speech), but I think Apple has something bigger than that up it's sleeve. What it is, who knows? I hope it's a sexy new laptop which runs Windows and OS X. Hell, it's not going to happen but it would be nice:) I suspect it'll be something in the vein of the iPod (which is why the iWalk is such a good hoax), fits in with all this digital hub stuff they keep going on about.
Slashdot Mirror
"they had a similar product it was called the DD64(Disc Drive 64)"
:) In terms of hardware mess-ups, Nintendo is probably the best at it. Sony just have their heads up their arses releasing a console with the same control pads, two ports and you still have to arse around with memory cards. At least Sega were simply short-sighted, rather than arrogant :)
My favourite N64 screw up was the RAM pack. Why the hell not just put it in the console in the first place?
That said, they could have made a Mega CD. Or 32x
Really? Their web site doesn't make that fact very apparent :) :)
They seem far more interested in cars. That gets another menu layer
The ones to watch out for are ARM. They have a tendency to sneak their way into practically everything: cars, mobile phones, PSIONs, even your Gameboy Advance.
:)
They have their sticky thumbs in a lot of different pies and because of the practical collapse of PSION handhelds, are probably itching to get back into the palmtop market.
Oh, they're also in your iPod too, and quite possibly your car
Warranty be damned! Having to sit under a direct light source all the time is such a hassslleee. My only worry is how much it sucks out of the battery life.
Personally, I have nothing to hide, and if police wants me to open up my data I've nothing against it
:) As long as they are using the technology to arrest criminals.
:)
That's the biggest worry I have with RIP. Law abiding citizens who aren't busy fiddling their tax returns or trafficking stolen mobile phones don't mind being watched. I don't honestly care. I have nothing to hide and if they want to read about my plans to go out on a Friday night, so be it
However, RIPs deal with losing encryption keys equating to the same as not presenting them because you don't want to turns over quite possibly our most fundamental legal belief: You are innocent, until proven guilty. This is the exact opposite: You are guilty until you prove otherwise.
Good point about knowing they're tracking you BTW
My suggestion: Live with it and use crypto where you can.
Unless you live in the UK where our then Home Secretary managed to push through a bill (which sounds astonishingly like the one in Enemy of the State) that allows the government and the police to do all the snooping they like. It's not like it wasn't happening anyway, but this made it legal.
The real kicker though, is that anyone who encrypts their data has to decrypt it if the police say so. If you don't, then you get locked up. The problem is, the law makes no distinction about refusing to decrypt, and not being able to decrypt. If you lose your keys, then you can get banged up. The government were planning a national database of encryption keys where you had to submit your own. I don't know where that is ATM.
Moral of the story: If you live in the UK, don't bother encrypting either. They'll just get their grubby hands on it if they want to.
"34 slinkies soldered together." Can't be that tough, surely? It's made difficult by all the supports this guy has come up with in order to elevate the slinky. If you wanted it to make pretty patterns (not lie on the floor lifeless), you could probably just wrap it around a large metal tube. Then you might get some interesting noises as the slinky vibrated around it.
:)
I did run a check on the Guinness Records site to see if there was any record for the longest slinky, but apparentely not. Anyone want a quick and easy record to break?
Absolutely. I stumped up the cash from Amazon.co.uk for a Revo, which fell over half it's price down to £100 (164 Euros or $142). Bargin.
It's also a cut being reflected on other sites, which leads me to believe it's come from Psion itself. It would make sense: their share price along with their market share is taking a bashing and the best way to get sales is to undercut even the unuseable end of the Palm range.
*Now* you've gone and done it. I'm sure Apple's lawyers are writing up the cease-and-desist order as we speak on the Aqua theme. D'oh :)
I remember reading in New Scientist (a few years ago now) that actually evolution might be speeding up. Both prospective parents now work in a society where work takes up a large chunk of your life, and contraception reduces unwanted pregnancies. We pick and choose when we want children.
The theory was that only the parents who had the skill or time-management abilities to get their work done sufficentely would try for a child. Therefore, the children produced will be smarter and have better time-management and ability to cope with stress.
I don't think it mentioned actual physical evolution though. I'm still waiting on those wings.
Do you expect the judge not to apply the law?
As for misrepresentation, I can only base any opinion by the link presented by the story. I'm sorry if the story posted is unfairly biased.
As to wheather I expect the judge not to apply the law, yes I do expect he should rule as the law is printed, and as he sees fit. However, I also think that perhaps he should make it his problem to highlight the fact that the law being presented was passed well before the technology it's being applied to. Times change. Society changes along with it. Why can't we import games? Why can't we import DVDs? Why can't we have our pick of the global market? Why are companies allowed to dictate this? It sets a precedence for which the bully boy companies can follow up on.
Do remember the bottom line:
The money from imports all goes to the same place, in the end.
Because, from the website at least, it looks astoundingly like a garage operation. The chap signed off as "Gazza" :)
It's a typical judgement for the UK courts to rule to the absolute letter in cases such as this. Problem is, the judges don't appear to have a firm grasp of the implications caused by these rulings. Most law has always been one step behind technology, but the problem we have now is that tech is a truly global market.
Marketing suits have been trying for years to stifle shopping internationally, in case people begin to realise that their countries are being screwed in comparison to others. This case affects games importing (because we aren't allowed to buy what we want say the suits) but DVDs as well (because it would absolutely *crush* the movie sector, say the suits) and anything else the marketing guys want to stifle. It's not like dealing contraband, it's off-the-shelf products.
My worry is that this trend will continue, even though it, in some cases, directly contravenes law. Here in the UK, our car prices are drastically higher than on the continent, and certain car manufacturers make it very difficult to buy your car abroad. This is despite the face the EU trade laws explicitely say otherwise. If companies are flauting the *law*, how exactly can we stop them?
Koolance have been doing this for the past year or so. Their cases look *alright*, but not great :( They have two models, the 'silent' model and the overclockers model. Both are at least "pretty decent." [H]ard OCP have a review of the first one, and I think the overclockers model too.
Claymation actually demands some pretty high-tech stuff nowadays, at least at Aardman. During an Open Day visit to Bristol University's Computer Science course, they showed off some stuff they had built for Aardman (who are based in Bristol) to use. Instead of still cameras, for Chicken Run they needed cameras which panned across the landscape. Now, when you think about this, it would actually be very hard to do. The camera operator would have to calculate how far and in what direction the camera would need to move for every frame of the shot. So Bristol built a mobile arm holding a camera which runs on tracks, and software which could be used to show when and where the camera had to be in specific positions. The software would then interpolate aall the stuff inbetween.
:)
Pretty sweet really
Could a judge force a company to reveal information in open court that would normally come under the data protection act?
;)
I should have thought so. Not even our government would be stupid enough to create a law to impede the courts being presented with important evidence
I took your criticism (hey, it's a flaw :) )to heart, and took it upon myself to clear my name. The Data Protection Act is one of the few good government websites we have (information? I can get to easily? Goodness!) and for all those who don't know about it, the rules are outlined concisely here. H'anyway, it says that the information must be kept secure (that's what I meant ;) ) and confirms your point on transferal to countries that don't have adequate protection. This must be possibly the only law we have in the UK that actually protects the rights of technology users, rather than hinders it. Hooray!
I'd like to know that myself. Here in the UK we have a law called the Data Protection Act, which means that all data that a company has on you they must take "reasonable" steps to protect it. So a small business can't be held accountable if someone steals their server or something. But it also means that companies can not pass your information onto third-parties without your express consent. Every form you fill in in the UK will have a box on the bottom saying "Check this if you do not want your information passed onto companies we think will be of interest to you." And any clever person *always* ticks this box :) Once this happens, not even the police can get the information without a court order. I remember a case in the UK where AOL handed over information on one of it's users to the cops without an order, and were sucessfully sued over it.
I assume there is a law like this in the States, which surely Robertson must have broken if he simply handed over the information?
I can see why he would like to see the Word format disappear into something altogether more open, but it's a bit too late for that.
.doc file. Problem is, neither choice is going to happen. MS makes it difficult to reverse-engineer everything, and they refuse to open up their source (even under the order of the US courts for pity's sake!).
Fact: MS has the stronghold over business machines.
Fact: MS Office has the stronghold in the office suite market.
Fact: The people who send out MS Word documents blindly probably don't know that there is anything but Windows and Word.
The solution is not with the mailers. These users don't understand why other people can't read Word files ("Everyone I know does. And I can. So everyone must do.") and probably don't even know how to save it to something more compatible. We can't change the practices of these people for a reason that seems very obscure to them. The "MS Word only" mentaltality of CV submission is another matter, however. Bosses should know better.
The ball, therefore, lies firmly in the software side of the court. That leaves us with two players (and possibly some more sport analagies if we're lucky!), Microsoft and, well, The Rest of the Software World. Either Microsoft open up their standard, or everyone else rushes to reverse-engineer the
So, nothing will change. It's one thing to speak evangelically about something, it's another thing to get any result (politicans anyone?)
I have more faith in a well recognised brand of soundcards which rate "at least decent" (quote source: Me). Honestly, though, OEMs, especially in their notebooks, don't even tell you what make of card is inside the box. That leads me to believe that it can only be worse than a Creative piece of kit.
Good golly. It's a soundcard for a notebook! No more putting up with El Crappo sound chips for me! Yes, I am actually being sincere about this :)
Surely there must be something else! A flat-panel iMac could not possibly warrant the marketing wagon that's been rolling through recentely.
Analogue is a old blurry beast which we must destroy. How any company can believe that it can revive a dying sector which is wholly based on analogue transmission is beyond me. LCD is flatter and uses less power. That doesn't really bother me (hell, this space rock's enviornment is on it's way out too :) ) and the desk space I'd save I'd fill up with old magazines/important college work never to be see again/toast growing new organisms. *But* the crystal clear digital transmission afforded by new LCD monitors interests me a great deal. The image quality is a lot better than a VGA in and CRT monitors can't offer that.
Death to waves! Long live the 1/0 revolution!
Running Windows 98 under VPC is cheating :) I want full-on hardware support so I can play games! Hmmmm, what if the announcement is that OS X will soon fully support Direct X or something like that? Gaming on a TiBook...Mmmmmm... *dream dream*
Flat panel iMacs I am almost certain will be announced (eagle-eyed people have spotted that The Apple Store has slapped a 7 day delivery time on the iMac, upped from three where the rest of the stock is at. 7 days puts the order after Jobs' keynote speech), but I think Apple has something bigger than that up it's sleeve. What it is, who knows? I hope it's a sexy new laptop which runs Windows and OS X. Hell, it's not going to happen but it would be nice :) I suspect it'll be something in the vein of the iPod (which is why the iWalk is such a good hoax), fits in with all this digital hub stuff they keep going on about.