Chandler wrote: i've seen a lot of super-violent 17 year olds
So have I. In Britain we call them "the army". You can sign up at 16. So what's the fuss over 18-rated games when you can start killing for real two years younger?
Heck, in the UK you can leave school and get married at 16- if your parents agree. At least with the army you get out after 3 years of non-stop violence...
If they only own the trademark to "whatshappenin.com" an not "whatshappening.com", then they're up poo creek 'cos "quepasa.com" is not a direct translation- it ain't a colloquialism.
Which would rather serve them right, what with their site going on about making an "educated choice" when they can't even spell "happening".
Unfortunately, both -in.com and -ing.com seem to lead to the same site. Arses.
The BBC's Jeremy Paxman is not known for politeness. This is the interviewer about whom Henry Kissinger said "If this is your idea of a kind and gentle interview, I'd hate to be on one of your other shows" ("Start The Week" on BBC Radio 4).
Think of the rudest question you can without actually swearing or veering off topic, and Jeremy WILL ask it.
Look, I live in the country. I have about as much chance of getting broadband access this millenium (i.e. before 2001 because that is the millenium dammit) as Bill Gates using Linux for his house. (less, actually).
Yay, what he said!
Us net.yokels and net.rednecks demand bandwidth NOW! I mean, what's the fucking point of wiring up towns for cable TV, teleshopping, multi-user chatlines and home offices when the video shop, supermarket, pub and place of work are on their doorstep? These amenities are often not available to rural users where not only remote location, but sheer lack of numbers, make even subsidised facilities uneconomic. And yet it is us folk out in the middle of nowhere who would benefit most!
If I had a quid for every time a British Telecom operator has said "Well, if you're not happy with line quality, get ISDN or ASDL", and I've said "YOUR COMPANY WON'T GIVE ME ISDN OR ASDL YOU MORON, I LIVE OUT IN THE STICKS, IF IT WASN'T FOR GOVERNMENT REGULATION YOU GUYS WOULDN'T EVEN GIVE ME A 'PHONE LINE!!!" I would be a very rich man.
ps. 2001 is not the millenium, it's the bi-millenium, and anyway the calendar is at least 6 years out- according to our current calendar, King Herod died in 5BC, at least six years before he ordered the killing of the newborn. Now THAT's what I call a fucking miracle. Christians, eh? Can we say "necromancy", children?
This kind of moral pseudo-religious bullshit has no place on Slashdot. It just acts as flamebait.
Euthanasia is not tech, it is not science, it is not news for nerds. Euthanasia has been around for millenia before genetics, and will remain around for many more to come.
Whether it is good or bad, well I've got plenty of opinions on the subject, but I don't think that Slashdot is the place to air them.
What next, are we gonna start discussing gun control on the grounds that someone made a techie rifle? Heck, why not just get a Perl script to write random pointless circular arguments automatically!
Erm, here in the UK we changed to metric in the 1970's and our road signs still show miles. It's not the signs that need changing, it's the minds.
It's only the schoolbooks you need to change. Everything else works it's way through over a period of 20 years (the time it takes for a teacher to go from kindergarten to university).
Do you think my mother, grandmother or girlfirend have the faintest idea how long a kilometer is? How many people out there in the US know the metric system?
Yes, but how many people REALLY know the Imperial ("English") system?
How many cubic inches in a pound of water?
How many square yards in three quarters of an acre?
No cheating with calculators or tables now! If these questions were in metric I could answer them straight off the top of my head.
Once you know the basics of Metric, you just keep adding or subtracting zeroes, and the answer works out for itself.
If you have a base ten number system, have a base ten measurement system. It's the only way that makes sense.
You don't have to change all the roadsigns or petrol signs. Here in the UK all roadsigns are still in miles. We only changed the petrol signs ten years ago, despite being metric for thirty years.
Just change the textbooks and the rest will flow through at it's own pace. (The metric system is so simple to pick up, teachers can learn it in an afternoon).
Let's face it, with a space programme costing billions of dollars, can you afford NOT to go metric?
Surely the title for this story should read "Mars Orbiter Lost Over IMPERIAL Conversion Error"?
I can't imagine any serious scientific or engineering outfit using imperial these days.
As for "English" units, let me assure you that the only non-metric units we English still use are for roadsigns and beer. Both of which are damn annoying, 'cos only madmen can do maths based on yard and miles, and you get more in half a litre of beer than you do in a pint. UK supermarkets will be forced to use kilogrammes next year- I can't wait!
Old people reckon they "know" Imperial units better, but when you start asking questions like "How many square miles in three quarters of an acre?" or "How many cubic inches in a pound of water?", it becomes blatantly obvious that they do not.
Whereas "How many square km in three quarters of a hectare?" or "How many cubic metres in a litre of water?" are dead easy.
Christ only knows how us lot ever managed to rule an empire using a measurement system based on half a dozen different number bases. I mean, did our ancestors chop off fingers on one hand and add them to other hands in order to count or what?
If you do maths in base ten, measure in base ten. It's a no-brainer.
Earlier this year, scientists were puzzled by what was described as a mysterious force acting on the probe. It led to speculation that there was something wrong in our understanding of the force of gravity.
Eventually the effect was tracked down to the probe itself, which was unexpectedly pushing itself in one particular direction.
I expect this new theory will also be dispelled by minor impacts, leaking remainders of fuel, and the fact that space isn't a true vaccuum. I'd be delighted to be proved wrong, of course.
Sporty wrote: Am I the only one that also thinks that the population density of some areas make it quite difficult to do this?
For mobile services it is surface-travellers, not population that counts. After all, if you're talking about static population, have a static landline.
How many people actually permanently live IN Disneyworld? Not many, I suppose. But there are thousands of visitors, so these kind of areas are prime locations for mobile 'phone transmitters.
What helps in Europe is that pretty much everywhere is "on the way" to somewhere else vaguely important. For instance, I live in the rural Cotswolds, UK (you'll be familiar with it if you've ever watched an Agatha Christie movie), which has a low population but is between Birmingham, Bristol and London. Thus even though the local population is low, we have people travelling- by car and train- through our area a lot. And that's why I can get a good signal strength at home despite it being well and truly out in the sticks as my wife points out.
I'm not sure this model would work in the Americas where you're in an "east coast" and "west coast" situation with two large metropolitan areas with very little inbetween- and the "inbetween" is a vast area of thousands of kilometres usually traversed by aeroplane, not car/train.
Of course, all this would be solved by satellite 'phones. But there is no incentive for people to use these schemes in Europe and Asia when GSM works just fine, thanks. And that's not forgetting the huge start-up costs of satellites compared to groundwave TXs.
Phone calls cannot be monitored because the phone line is considered a "common carrier" and thus not the property of the company. Wrong!
In the EC within the last month, laws have been drafted to make it mandatory for companies over a certain size to provide unmonitored payphones in an area of privacy. All to do with a legal precident set by some office worker who claimed the company was acting unfairly by not allowing her to 'phone her doctor or something.
IMHO that's a good balance. You can't make personal calls on company extensions, but you do have access to unmonitored payphones in a booth.
It's only a matter of time before this also applies to email here in the EC. British Telecom are already trialling 2,000 email pay booths at train stations and post offices.
Visit www.askreggie.com and you'll see one of many WHOIS web page interfaces with adverts. AskReggie happens to be owned by Andover.net, who also own Slashdot.
The point? Well you have to realise that Network Solutions are talking about doing exactly the same thing; putting adverts on their WEB PAGE INTERFACE and NOT, I repeat NOT, on the actual WHOIS data itself.
So if you continue using a command-line or desktop WHOIS utility, or use the same web page outside Network Solutions that you already do, then you'll get no more or less adverts than you ever did.
In short: this is a NON-STORY.
Which makes me wonder whether the people who wrote the story and submitted it understand the difference between a WEB PAGE INTERFACE and real, proper, raw WHOIS query. FFS.
Free healthcare, everything is within a day's drive (even most of Europe), ADSL and GPRS are being rolled out nationwide next year, no mad people with guns (not even the police), we have strong beer and even stronger cider, you can get laid at 16 and drunk at 18, we don't have daft crypto laws, and most people are atheists.
London sucks, petrol (gasoline) prices suck (70p/litre, US$5/gallon), but other than that it's a pretty cool place to be.
I know a couple of people who telecommute to jobs in the States. Once you have remote reboot installed on your machine, being on the same continent doesn't really matter anymore.
I've been using a Midiman Multimixer 6 for the past few years to mix my synths, CD and PC. It really rocks, is very small (15x8cm/6x3in), exceptionally robust (metal casing), the sound quality is second to none, and the beasties are dirt cheap.
The Multimixer 6 has 6 mono channels, with pan/gain on each one you can assign stereo and balance as you require. The Multimixer 10 has an added 2 stereo channels (also with pan/gain). Both units feature seperate left/right master gain controls.
Mixer power is taken from a 9v adaptor.
To further the flexibility of my system the Midiman is chained to a hi-fi amp.
I have no connection with Midiman other than as a satisfied customer.
You got mains sewerage??? Bloody luxury! (We lived in a cardboard box in the middle of the road etc...) From the whiff that has pervaded my orchard for the last few days I think our new next door neighbours have discovered exactly why it is a BAD idea to put bleech into a septic tank...
Getting back to the point, have you thought about business rate ISDN? This has an 8km range, and doesn't cost much more, BUT you have to have a pretty good terminal adaptor- not one of those 30 quid jobs, one that does office telephone extensions and the like- and if the power goes, pooff go your telephones, too. The other option is, as I said, satellite such as DirectPC which gives you minimum 256kbits but the upload is over a normal 'phone line, and obviously isn't an option if dishes are banned in your area.
Can you get V.90 56k at 40k+? I can only get 33.6 on a good day tops.
I've told BT that unless I get ISDN at home highway rates by September, I am switching all my Internet calls to Cable and Wireless. This should cut my revenue for BT from 60 quid a month to under a tenner! I won't save any money; C+W calls cost a little bit more than BTPremierLine actually but since you don't have pay the PremierLine fee it works out about the same. C+W's UKCall service allows you to route your calls via C+W from a normal BT 'phone line. I'll give it a try and see if it's any good.
The document says that local loop ADSL competition and radio spectrum broadband access will start in 2001, NOT be rolled out nationwide by 2001.
In fact, it's even worse than that. Paragraph 5.2 says that Oftel will rely on competition to drive high bandwidth services into rural areas. Whilst this worked very nicely for GSM digital mobile phones, just see what happened to cable TV- virtually unknown outside towns (just try doing TCP/IP on a satellite dish- very expensive and useless for uploading- and that's presuming you don't live in an area when dishes are banned, as they are in so many rural areas!).
Plus, there is no recommendation that BT should be mandated to supply even their existing medium bandwidth services such as Home Highway ISDN to rural users (not available more than 2 miles from the exchange- I live only 500 metres from the exchange but the copper wire takes a 3 mile detour!)
In short, rural areas have yet again been sold down the river. What annoys me is that it is rural residents that need this bandwidth the most. Oftel is a regulatory body and should be looking after needs, not profit. Why would townsfolk want cable TV, teleshopping, multi-user chatlines and home offices when the video shop, supermarket, pub and place of work are on their doorstep? These amenities are often not available to rural users where not only remote location, but sheer lack of numbers, make even subsidised facilities uneconomic.
The official consultation period has ended, but once you have read the document you can still send your opinions to:
Erm, I thought the reason we Brits drove on the left was that horse carriage hand brakes are located on the side of the vehicle, and therefore the driver had to have his strong hand (usually his right hand) within easy access of the hand brake.
This would mean the driver was seated on the right.
In order to have a seating position central to the road (to give better visibility), the driver therefore rode on the left of the road.
(score: -1 flamebait:-)::We are not the ENGLISH. We are Brittish. Damn it. You are not Brittish. I happen to be British, and every time some stupid UK person speaks about 'Brittish' instead of 'British', I get slightly annoyed. How would you like it I flamed someone for getting my nationality wrong, and then managed to get my own nationality wrong or something? Support devolution for Mercia! "The point of devolution is not to break up the UK, but rather that the rest of the UK would be a whole lot happier without London"
This particular site is just using common or garden analogue scanners. American/Canadian mobiles are still analogue (can you imagine that! No international roaming, loads of static- it must be like still living in the 80's).
If US/CA citizens are stupid enough to broadcast their private conversations on an open channel, that's their look out. They can have all the laws they like but it doesn't change the fact that analogue transmissions are no more private than standing on top of a hill and shouting (and what kind of idiot would draft a law that makes it illegal to own a pair of ears?).
I too live near Cheltenham and I take your point about GCHQ. However if GCHQ have a need to listen in to anything, no matter how it is transmitted or encrypted, they will. GSM or GPO, PCN or PGP it makes no difference. The most obvious way of doing this is by being present at the time of encryption or decryption, or by stealing the key physically, NOT by doing the maths. That's why we still pay our spies- to break in to places, plant bugs, and steal things.
The question is... do they WANT to be listening in to your or my lives? The answer I'm afraid is that they have loads more important things to do.
I know enough people there to know that, on the whole, they're an okay bunch of people. Sure there must be more than a few maneovolent bad apples but on the whole, they're good guys.
Africa One are the company running the show. Their site has some reasonably detailed technical and geographical info, but is a bit short on where exactly they are going to get US$1.2bn from.
I think it's a great idea but I have a couple of worries:
Doesn't Africa have more urgent things to spend the money on? And will the money be lost through backhanders or government mis-spending anyway?
I really can't believe that an undersea cable is the most cost effective, neither in the short nor long term. And won't inland countries need a connection too? A network of cross-country cable or microwave links would surely be a better plan (feel free to shoot me down here on technical or geographical grounds!)
Having said that, the project could revolutionise Africa in a million and one positive ways.
"Bletch" or "Blatch" is an old Saxon word meaning "bleach", as in to remove colour, to wash clean or to colour white.
"Ley", "Lee" or "Lay" means a field or a clearing in a forest. Remember, in Saxon times, most of Europe was one huge forest so most fields were also clearings! No prizes for guessing what my surname (Oakley) means, then.
Thus "Bletchley" means the field where people washed their clothes. Maybe one of your ancestors lived near such a field, or was a washerman there, or owned a dark ages launderette business!
The Bletchley family have quite an aristocratic heritage in England, which includes residence at Bletchley Park (he says quickly getting back on topic).
If you ancestors changed their name from Bletchley to something else on arrival in the USA, it is possible they were trying to dissasociate themselves with the aristocratic branch of the family (Were they criminals, was their family ashamed of them? Did the aristocrats have a bad reputation as cruel landowners? Or were they, like the majority, merely illiterate and unable to spell their name? Etc.). You can find out more from virtually any geneology site (there are millions) and there are several famous Bletchleys in the history books.
Okay, the reason I put the word "allegedly" into my story quote is because I expected there to be some considerable disagreement about which was the "first" computer. Particularly since Germany, France, the UK and the USA all claim this honour (plus a few others I expect).
The problem is: what is a computer? Do you mean a calculator? So does an abacus count? Something that runs a program? So does a weaving loom count? Something electronic that runs a program? So does a washing machine count? Something digital? Something that has a modifyable program? Something that stores its program in the same way as its data?
As you can see, there are many definitions of "computer". Stop bickering!
And to add to that, early computers were often an international effort. Certianly Bletchley Park relied heavily on US involvement towards the end of the war.
That doesn't detract from the fact that Bletchley Park was a major contributor to both cryptography and modern computing.
Anyway, here's a few more British historical computing links for those who like nostaligia. If anyone would like to add some links to sites about other historical computers- of any nation- I'd be most interested.
Slashdot Mirror
So have I. In Britain we call them "the army". You can sign up at 16. So what's the fuss over 18-rated games when you can start killing for real two years younger?
Today's BBC story about the UK's "child soldiers"
Heck, in the UK you can leave school and get married at 16- if your parents agree. At least with the army you get out after 3 years of non-stop violence...
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If they only own the trademark to "whatshappenin.com" an not "whatshappening.com", then they're up poo creek 'cos "quepasa.com" is not a direct translation- it ain't a colloquialism.
Which would rather serve them right, what with their site going on about making an "educated choice" when they can't even spell "happening".
Unfortunately, both -in.com and -ing.com seem to lead to the same site. Arses.
--
The BBC's Jeremy Paxman is not known for politeness. This is the interviewer about whom Henry Kissinger said "If this is your idea of a kind and gentle interview, I'd hate to be on one of your other shows" ("Start The Week" on BBC Radio 4).
Think of the rudest question you can without actually swearing or veering off topic, and Jeremy WILL ask it.
For the first time in my life I pity Bill Gates.
Paxman Bio
Pax man denounces politcal conferences
No more Mr. Nice Guy
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Look, I live in the country. I have about as much chance of getting broadband access this millenium (i.e. before 2001 because that is the millenium dammit) as Bill Gates using Linux for his house. (less, actually).
Yay, what he said!
Us net.yokels and net.rednecks demand bandwidth NOW! I mean, what's the fucking point of wiring up towns for cable TV, teleshopping, multi-user chatlines and home offices when the video shop, supermarket, pub and place of work are on their doorstep? These amenities are often not available to rural users where not only remote location, but sheer lack of numbers, make even subsidised facilities uneconomic. And yet it is us folk out in the middle of nowhere who would benefit most!
If I had a quid for every time a British Telecom operator has said "Well, if you're not happy with line quality, get ISDN or ASDL", and I've said "YOUR COMPANY WON'T GIVE ME ISDN OR ASDL YOU MORON, I LIVE OUT IN THE STICKS, IF IT WASN'T FOR GOVERNMENT REGULATION YOU GUYS WOULDN'T EVEN GIVE ME A 'PHONE LINE!!!" I would be a very rich man.
ps. 2001 is not the millenium, it's the bi-millenium, and anyway the calendar is at least 6 years out- according to our current calendar, King Herod died in 5BC, at least six years before he ordered the killing of the newborn. Now THAT's what I call a fucking miracle. Christians, eh? Can we say "necromancy", children?
score -1000 offtopic, flamebait, etc... :-)
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This kind of moral pseudo-religious bullshit has no place on Slashdot. It just acts as flamebait.
Euthanasia is not tech, it is not science, it is not news for nerds. Euthanasia has been around for millenia before genetics, and will remain around for many more to come.
Whether it is good or bad, well I've got plenty of opinions on the subject, but I don't think that Slashdot is the place to air them.
What next, are we gonna start discussing gun control on the grounds that someone made a techie rifle? Heck, why not just get a Perl script to write random pointless circular arguments automatically!
Get this off Slashdot. NOW!
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Your funny post has a serious point:
Whatever number base you use for counting, use the same one for measuring
I would submit that growing an extra two fingers would be required before Base12 gains popularity.
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Erm, here in the UK we changed to metric in the 1970's and our road signs still show miles. It's not the signs that need changing, it's the minds.
It's only the schoolbooks you need to change. Everything else works it's way through over a period of 20 years (the time it takes for a teacher to go from kindergarten to university).
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Do you think my mother, grandmother or girlfirend have the faintest idea how long a kilometer is? How many people out there in the US know the metric system?
Yes, but how many people REALLY know the Imperial ("English") system?
How many cubic inches in a pound of water?
How many square yards in three quarters of an acre?
No cheating with calculators or tables now! If these questions were in metric I could answer them straight off the top of my head.
Once you know the basics of Metric, you just keep adding or subtracting zeroes, and the answer works out for itself.
If you have a base ten number system, have a base ten measurement system. It's the only way that makes sense.
You don't have to change all the roadsigns or petrol signs. Here in the UK all roadsigns are still in miles. We only changed the petrol signs ten years ago, despite being metric for thirty years.
Just change the textbooks and the rest will flow through at it's own pace. (The metric system is so simple to pick up, teachers can learn it in an afternoon).
Let's face it, with a space programme costing billions of dollars, can you afford NOT to go metric?
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Surely the title for this story should read "Mars Orbiter Lost Over IMPERIAL Conversion Error"?
I can't imagine any serious scientific or engineering outfit using imperial these days.
As for "English" units, let me assure you that the only non-metric units we English still use are for roadsigns and beer. Both of which are damn annoying, 'cos only madmen can do maths based on yard and miles, and you get more in half a litre of beer than you do in a pint. UK supermarkets will be forced to use kilogrammes next year- I can't wait!
Old people reckon they "know" Imperial units better, but when you start asking questions like "How many square miles in three quarters of an acre?" or "How many cubic inches in a pound of water?", it becomes blatantly obvious that they do not.
Whereas "How many square km in three quarters of a hectare?" or "How many cubic metres in a litre of water?" are dead easy.
Christ only knows how us lot ever managed to rule an empire using a measurement system based on half a dozen different number bases. I mean, did our ancestors chop off fingers on one hand and add them to other hands in order to count or what?
If you do maths in base ten, measure in base ten. It's a no-brainer.
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This BBC article yesterday about the discovery of yet another Kuiper Belt object by Pioneer, mentions at the bottom:
Earlier this year, scientists were puzzled by what was described as a mysterious force acting on the probe. It led to speculation that there was something wrong in our understanding of the force of gravity.
Eventually the effect was tracked down to the probe itself, which was unexpectedly pushing itself in one particular direction.
I expect this new theory will also be dispelled by minor impacts, leaking remainders of fuel, and the fact that space isn't a true vaccuum. I'd be delighted to be proved wrong, of course.
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Sporty wrote: Am I the only one that also thinks that the population density of some areas make it quite difficult to do this?
For mobile services it is surface-travellers, not population that counts. After all, if you're talking about static population, have a static landline.
How many people actually permanently live IN Disneyworld? Not many, I suppose. But there are thousands of visitors, so these kind of areas are prime locations for mobile 'phone transmitters.
What helps in Europe is that pretty much everywhere is "on the way" to somewhere else vaguely important. For instance, I live in the rural Cotswolds, UK (you'll be familiar with it if you've ever watched an Agatha Christie movie), which has a low population but is between Birmingham, Bristol and London. Thus even though the local population is low, we have people travelling- by car and train- through our area a lot. And that's why I can get a good signal strength at home despite it being well and truly out in the sticks as my wife points out.
I'm not sure this model would work in the Americas where you're in an "east coast" and "west coast" situation with two large metropolitan areas with very little inbetween- and the "inbetween" is a vast area of thousands of kilometres usually traversed by aeroplane, not car/train.
Of course, all this would be solved by satellite 'phones. But there is no incentive for people to use these schemes in Europe and Asia when GSM works just fine, thanks. And that's not forgetting the huge start-up costs of satellites compared to groundwave TXs.
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Phone calls cannot be monitored because the phone line is considered a "common carrier" and thus not the property of the company.
Wrong!
In the EC within the last month, laws have been drafted to make it mandatory for companies over a certain size to provide unmonitored payphones in an area of privacy. All to do with a legal precident set by some office worker who claimed the company was acting unfairly by not allowing her to 'phone her doctor or something.
IMHO that's a good balance. You can't make personal calls on company extensions, but you do have access to unmonitored payphones in a booth.
It's only a matter of time before this also applies to email here in the EC. British Telecom are already trialling 2,000 email pay booths at train stations and post offices.
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Visit www.askreggie.com and you'll see one of many WHOIS web page interfaces with adverts. AskReggie happens to be owned by Andover.net, who also own Slashdot.
The point? Well you have to realise that Network Solutions are talking about doing exactly the same thing; putting adverts on their WEB PAGE INTERFACE and NOT, I repeat NOT, on the actual WHOIS data itself.
So if you continue using a command-line or desktop WHOIS utility, or use the same web page outside Network Solutions that you already do, then you'll get no more or less adverts than you ever did.
In short: this is a NON-STORY.
Which makes me wonder whether the people who wrote the story and submitted it understand the difference between a WEB PAGE INTERFACE and real, proper, raw WHOIS query. FFS.
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Ditto s/Canada/UK/
Free healthcare, everything is within a day's drive (even most of Europe), ADSL and GPRS are being rolled out nationwide next year, no mad people with guns (not even the police), we have strong beer and even stronger cider, you can get laid at 16 and drunk at 18, we don't have daft crypto laws, and most people are atheists.
London sucks, petrol (gasoline) prices suck (70p/litre, US$5/gallon), but other than that it's a pretty cool place to be.
I know a couple of people who telecommute to jobs in the States. Once you have remote reboot installed on your machine, being on the same continent doesn't really matter anymore.
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I've been using a Midiman Multimixer 6 for the past few years to mix my synths, CD and PC. It really rocks, is very small (15x8cm/6x3in), exceptionally robust (metal casing), the sound quality is second to none, and the beasties are dirt cheap.
www.midiman.com/Html/products/mixer s.htm
The Multimixer 6 has 6 mono channels, with pan/gain on each one you can assign stereo and balance as you require. The Multimixer 10 has an added 2 stereo channels (also with pan/gain). Both units feature seperate left/right master gain controls.
Mixer power is taken from a 9v adaptor.
To further the flexibility of my system the Midiman is chained to a hi-fi amp.
I have no connection with Midiman other than as a satisfied customer.
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Cable? In the Cotswolds? In Shropshire? In Cornwall? In North Wales? In Cumbria? In the Highlands and Islands? Ha ha ha ha ha...
What we need is broadband GSM not this fibre optic pie in the sky rubbish. Glass is for backbones, not for the likes of us.
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Alderton
Near Tewkesbury
Glos. GL20 8NX
Fax 08700 553642
Email evilandi@cimmerii.demon.co.uk
Website http://www.custodian.com/alderton
Wednesday 7th July 1999
Attn: Ms Sally Trebble
Consultation on Access to Bandwidth,
OFTEL,
50 Ludgate Hill,
London.
EC4M 7JJ
Email netcomp.oftel@gtnet.gov.uk
CC: Nigel Burke, Countryside Alliance
You got mains sewerage??? Bloody luxury! (We lived in a cardboard box in the middle of the road etc...) From the whiff that has pervaded my orchard for the last few days I think our new next door neighbours have discovered exactly why it is a BAD idea to put bleech into a septic tank...
Getting back to the point, have you thought about business rate ISDN? This has an 8km range, and doesn't cost much more, BUT you have to have a pretty good terminal adaptor- not one of those 30 quid jobs, one that does office telephone extensions and the like- and if the power goes, pooff go your telephones, too. The other option is, as I said, satellite such as DirectPC which gives you minimum 256kbits but the upload is over a normal 'phone line, and obviously isn't an option if dishes are banned in your area.
Can you get V.90 56k at 40k+? I can only get 33.6 on a good day tops.
I've told BT that unless I get ISDN at home highway rates by September, I am switching all my Internet calls to Cable and Wireless. This should cut my revenue for BT from 60 quid a month to under a tenner! I won't save any money; C+W calls cost a little bit more than BTPremierLine actually but since you don't have pay the PremierLine fee it works out about the same. C+W's UKCall service allows you to route your calls via C+W from a normal BT 'phone line. I'll give it a try and see if it's any good.
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The document says that local loop ADSL competition and radio spectrum broadband access will start in 2001, NOT be rolled out nationwide by 2001.
In fact, it's even worse than that. Paragraph 5.2 says that Oftel will rely on competition to drive high bandwidth services into rural areas. Whilst this worked very nicely for GSM digital mobile phones, just see what happened to cable TV- virtually unknown outside towns (just try doing TCP/IP on a satellite dish- very expensive and useless for uploading- and that's presuming you don't live in an area when dishes are banned, as they are in so many rural areas!).
Plus, there is no recommendation that BT should be mandated to supply even their existing medium bandwidth services such as Home Highway ISDN to rural users (not available more than 2 miles from the exchange- I live only 500 metres from the exchange but the copper wire takes a 3 mile detour!)
In short, rural areas have yet again been sold down the river. What annoys me is that it is rural residents that need this bandwidth the most. Oftel is a regulatory body and should be looking after needs, not profit. Why would townsfolk want cable TV, teleshopping, multi-user chatlines and home offices when the video shop, supermarket, pub and place of work are on their doorstep? These amenities are often not available to rural users where not only remote location, but sheer lack of numbers, make even subsidised facilities uneconomic.
The official consultation period has ended, but once you have read the document you can still send your opinions to:
Ms Sally Trebble,
Consultation on Access to Bandwidth,
OFTEL,
50, Ludgate Hill,
London.
EC4M 7JJ
or email netcomp.oftel@gtnet.gov.uk
or fax 0171 634 8924
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Erm, I thought the reason we Brits drove on the left was that horse carriage hand brakes are located on the side of the vehicle, and therefore the driver had to have his strong hand (usually his right hand) within easy access of the hand brake.
This would mean the driver was seated on the right.
In order to have a seating position central to the road (to give better visibility), the driver therefore rode on the left of the road.
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This particular site is just using common or garden analogue scanners. American/Canadian mobiles are still analogue (can you imagine that! No international roaming, loads of static- it must be like still living in the 80's).
If US/CA citizens are stupid enough to broadcast their private conversations on an open channel, that's their look out. They can have all the laws they like but it doesn't change the fact that analogue transmissions are no more private than standing on top of a hill and shouting (and what kind of idiot would draft a law that makes it illegal to own a pair of ears?).
I too live near Cheltenham and I take your point about GCHQ. However if GCHQ have a need to listen in to anything, no matter how it is transmitted or encrypted, they will. GSM or GPO, PCN or PGP it makes no difference. The most obvious way of doing this is by being present at the time of encryption or decryption, or by stealing the key physically, NOT by doing the maths. That's why we still pay our spies- to break in to places, plant bugs, and steal things.
The question is... do they WANT to be listening in to your or my lives? The answer I'm afraid is that they have loads more important things to do.
I know enough people there to know that, on the whole, they're an okay bunch of people. Sure there must be more than a few maneovolent bad apples but on the whole, they're good guys.
If you are going to worry about people hacking GSM or PCN then you are going to go very, very mad.
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Africa One are the company running the show. Their site has some reasonably detailed technical and geographical info, but is a bit short on where exactly they are going to get US$1.2bn from.
I think it's a great idea but I have a couple of worries:
Having said that, the project could revolutionise Africa in a million and one positive ways.
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"Bletch" or "Blatch" is an old Saxon word meaning "bleach", as in to remove colour, to wash clean or to colour white.
"Ley", "Lee" or "Lay" means a field or a clearing in a forest. Remember, in Saxon times, most of Europe was one huge forest so most fields were also clearings! No prizes for guessing what my surname (Oakley) means, then.
Thus "Bletchley" means the field where people washed their clothes. Maybe one of your ancestors lived near such a field, or was a washerman there, or owned a dark ages launderette business!
The Bletchley family have quite an aristocratic heritage in England, which includes residence at Bletchley Park (he says quickly getting back on topic).
If you ancestors changed their name from Bletchley to something else on arrival in the USA, it is possible they were trying to dissasociate themselves with the aristocratic branch of the family (Were they criminals, was their family ashamed of them? Did the aristocrats have a bad reputation as cruel landowners? Or were they, like the majority, merely illiterate and unable to spell their name? Etc.). You can find out more from virtually any geneology site (there are millions) and there are several famous Bletchleys in the history books.
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Okay, the reason I put the word "allegedly" into my story quote is because I expected there to be some considerable disagreement about which was the "first" computer. Particularly since Germany, France, the UK and the USA all claim this honour (plus a few others I expect).
The problem is: what is a computer? Do you mean a calculator? So does an abacus count? Something that runs a program? So does a weaving loom count? Something electronic that runs a program? So does a washing machine count? Something digital? Something that has a modifyable program? Something that stores its program in the same way as its data?
As you can see, there are many definitions of "computer". Stop bickering!
And to add to that, early computers were often an international effort. Certianly Bletchley Park relied heavily on US involvement towards the end of the war.
That doesn't detract from the fact that Bletchley Park was a major contributor to both cryptography and modern computing.
Anyway, here's a few more British historical computing links for those who like nostaligia. If anyone would like to add some links to sites about other historical computers- of any nation- I'd be most interested.
Colossus I
The LEO - Lyons Electric Office (my dad worked on this)
The WITCH (my dad worked on this, too!)
The Baby
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