You should take the time to find out about parliamentary supremacy in the UK. The courts are independent all right, but the UK government can do pretty much whatever it wants, including enacting retroactive legislation and regulations (see for example the MPs expenses scandal). The courts in the UK can only dream of having that kind of power.
My Dad had his spleen removed when he was a kid, and a number of years ago (10) was told he had to carry a card around with him that said something like
"I have had my spleen removed and may be subject to overwhelming infection."
Seriously. We told him he shouldn't use that as his opening gambit when talking to girls:-)
How can it be that no-one has mentioned them yet? Apart from the (equally obvious) reason being that hardly anyone cares that they are going down the proverbial drain...
Using a combination of a calculator and the current exchange rate (as well as some very poor knowledge of VAT in other EU countries), the UK PS3 will come out at £402 using Irish prices and £399 using EU prices. So its about £25 ($49) overpriced in the UK either way. The VAT rate in the UK is 17.5%, so something approaching the £399 mark would have been nice, but hey, this is Britain...
Another vote for Ars here. There is, as mentioned above, the NT, 2K and XP Technical Mojo forum, which concentrates on systems management and the like, and there's the MSOS&SC (aka the Microsoft OS and Software Colloquium), which covers more application and home PC-related issues.
I was a little surprised to see that The Sentinel Returns wasn't mentioned in the article - definitely a game with an abstract look, and an abstract concept. Never did finish it, though. The original's 10000 levels were a bit too much of a challenge.
As part of the kernel evolution towards modular naming, the functions malloc and mfree are being renamed to rmalloc and rmfree Compatibility will be maintained by the following assembly code: (also see mfree/rmfree below)
How pointless is that? It looks like the only thing there that is identical is the comment.
The second film is Neo's quest for a purpose. On the basis of the Q&A between Neo and The Architect, Neo's purpose seems to be that he is the reboot switch for the Matrix.
He destroys the Source and the Sentinels waste Zion, with the exception of the 23 people he chooses to perpetuate the species. And the whole thing starts over.
Presumably Revolutions will show Neo to be the worm that turned, so to speak...
Gotta agree on Iain M. Banks. To be honest, I didn't think Consider Phlebas was all that great by comparison with the rest, but The Player of Games is probably the best one to start with if you've never read anything by him before, and Excession is probably the best of the bunch that I've read.
Use of Weapons is a good read as well (polished it off on a two week holiday recently), and got through Feersum Endjinn on the same break. Feersum Endjinn is a shorter book than the rest (unless you count The State of the Art, his short story collection), but needs a bit of concentration - one quarter of the book is written in the style of a (seemingly dyslexic) 10-year-old - it's all written semi-phonetically. Yood reelay need 2c it 2 get th eyedea. It's a damn good read though.
Just started on Against a Dark Background - don't know what to make of it yet...
A while back, I read The Illuminatus! Trilogy. Talk about fscked up. One of the toughest reads I've ever encountered, because for the most part it's an apparently structureless morass of utter twaddle. It took me a couple of months to get through it and it was, shall we say, less than completely enjoyable...
On the non-sci-fi front, if you want a really challenging read, try Moby Dick - I've tried and failed to finish this book three times, and it is the strongest contender for the title of Great American Novel by a very long way. My uncle (a prof of English Lit) recommended it to my Dad, who never finished it, and he recommended it to me. I don't know what I did wrong to receive the recommendation though. Oh, and it'll take you the whole Summer (and possibly all of Autumn and part of Winter) to get through it;-)
It's a little difficult to see how this can be bad for world peace, given that the US and Europe are supposed to be (broadly, at least) allies.
To paraphrase the first post, "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?", or, for those of you who don't know classical Greek, "Who guards the guards?". A competing system can only be a good thing, as there are - believe it or not - governments out there who don't think that relying on US technology is a good thing. The existence of competing systems will go some way to keeping them both honest.
And anyway, isn't competition what the US is all about, or do they prefer entering competitions where they are the only runner?
Slashdot Mirror
Only one original release this century?
Courtesy of Kermode and Mayo's Film Review show on BBC Radio Five Live, The Moviegoers Code of Conduct. Also available as a poster!
There's some soup on my fly!
USS Ponce ? Really...?
You should take the time to find out about parliamentary supremacy in the UK. The courts are independent all right, but the UK government can do pretty much whatever it wants, including enacting retroactive legislation and regulations (see for example the MPs expenses scandal). The courts in the UK can only dream of having that kind of power.
As far as putting the devices on a leash is concerned, maybe the employees who lost them didn't want to pay for tethering.
A cautionary tale from Ars Technica. It's a long thread, but the "fun" begins about 2/3 of the way through (page 60-something, IIRC).
My Dad had his spleen removed when he was a kid, and a number of years ago (10) was told he had to carry a card around with him that said something like
"I have had my spleen removed and may be subject to overwhelming infection."
Seriously. We told him he shouldn't use that as his opening gambit when talking to girls :-)
You realise of course that this is an April Fool. The author of the article, http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/apr/01/guardian-twitter-media-technology, is Rio Palof - an anagram of "April Fool"...
Well, this brings a whole new meaning to the phrase "navel-gazing",
Well, it seems to be working again. At least, it is for me :-)
The SCO Group?
How can it be that no-one has mentioned them yet? Apart from the (equally obvious) reason being that hardly anyone cares that they are going down the proverbial drain...
Using a combination of a calculator and the current exchange rate (as well as some very poor knowledge of VAT in other EU countries), the UK PS3 will come out at £402 using Irish prices and £399 using EU prices. So its about £25 ($49) overpriced in the UK either way. The VAT rate in the UK is 17.5%, so something approaching the £399 mark would have been nice, but hey, this is Britain...
Mark Russinovich's blog has a lot of detail about this particular package, including some info on how to get rid of it...
Type in linux better than windows and MSN search turns up nothing. Type the same terms into Google and you get nearly 2.2 million pages. Go figure.
Another vote for Ars here. There is, as mentioned above, the NT, 2K and XP Technical Mojo forum, which concentrates on systems management and the like, and there's the MSOS&SC (aka the Microsoft OS and Software Colloquium), which covers more application and home PC-related issues.
There are plenty more forums to have a look at if you go the Ars OpenForum Homepage.
I was a little surprised to see that The Sentinel Returns wasn't mentioned in the article - definitely a game with an abstract look, and an abstract concept. Never did finish it, though. The original's 10000 levels were a bit too much of a challenge.
The Dell DJ site is worth a look for a review and fairly in-depth discussion of the DJ, without being too fanboyish.
And it says...
As part of the kernel evolution towards modular naming, the
functions malloc and mfree are being renamed to rmalloc and rmfree
Compatibility will be maintained by the following assembly code:
(also see mfree/rmfree below)
How pointless is that? It looks like the only thing there that is identical is the comment.
When I first read the headline, I read IP as intellectual property - which kinda shows where the headlines have been recently.
OTOH, given the whole RIAA/MPAA/DMCA carry-on at the moment, maybe it did mean intellectual property, and the wrong story just got pegged on...
The second film is Neo's quest for a purpose. On the basis of the Q&A between Neo and The Architect, Neo's purpose seems to be that he is the reboot switch for the Matrix.
He destroys the Source and the Sentinels waste Zion, with the exception of the 23 people he chooses to perpetuate the species. And the whole thing starts over.
Presumably Revolutions will show Neo to be the worm that turned, so to speak...
Gotta agree on Iain M. Banks. To be honest, I didn't think Consider Phlebas was all that great by comparison with the rest, but The Player of Games is probably the best one to start with if you've never read anything by him before, and Excession is probably the best of the bunch that I've read.
;-)
Use of Weapons is a good read as well (polished it off on a two week holiday recently), and got through Feersum Endjinn on the same break. Feersum Endjinn is a shorter book than the rest (unless you count The State of the Art, his short story collection), but needs a bit of concentration - one quarter of the book is written in the style of a (seemingly dyslexic) 10-year-old - it's all written semi-phonetically. Yood reelay need 2c it 2 get th eyedea. It's a damn good read though.
Just started on Against a Dark Background - don't know what to make of it yet...
A while back, I read The Illuminatus! Trilogy. Talk about fscked up. One of the toughest reads I've ever encountered, because for the most part it's an apparently structureless morass of utter twaddle. It took me a couple of months to get through it and it was, shall we say, less than completely enjoyable...
On the non-sci-fi front, if you want a really challenging read, try Moby Dick - I've tried and failed to finish this book three times, and it is the strongest contender for the title of Great American Novel by a very long way. My uncle (a prof of English Lit) recommended it to my Dad, who never finished it, and he recommended it to me. I don't know what I did wrong to receive the recommendation though. Oh, and it'll take you the whole Summer (and possibly all of Autumn and part of Winter) to get through it
Well done to BJH for spotting the deliberate mistake :-) For some reason I remembered it being from The Iliad, but it's from Juvenal's Satires. Duh.
It's a little difficult to see how this can be bad for world peace, given that the US and Europe are supposed to be (broadly, at least) allies.
To paraphrase the first post, "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?", or, for those of you who don't know classical Greek, "Who guards the guards?". A competing system can only be a good thing, as there are - believe it or not - governments out there who don't think that relying on US technology is a good thing. The existence of competing systems will go some way to keeping them both honest.
And anyway, isn't competition what the US is all about, or do they prefer entering competitions where they are the only runner?
If you do stuff people don't like in New Zealand they make you do what they call an "extra safe bungee jump".
They call it that because, to minimise any risk of the cord breaking, they use a chain instead.