The "current version" (and all older versions) of VPC runs DOS (pre-installed).
Virtual PC (for Mac or Windows) is a separate application that emulates hardware. The OS is not a part of VPC. When you buy VPC with an included Windows OS, the hardware sticker is included on the OEM documentation (normally the maker of the computer places this sticker on a physical PC).
You can buy VPC with a pre-configured drive image that includes a Windows OS. You still have to go through many of the installation steps you would on a Dell (for example) to get it up, and Microsoft sells this OS to Connectix (or itself in about 6 months) as an OEM version.
You can also buy any number of copies of Windows from Microsoft and install it on any number of VPC virutal machines.
Finally, you could install any x86 OS on the VPC virtual machine. The usual compatibilty and configuration issues will be there; if your chosen OS is incompatible with some part of the virtual hardware, you would not be able to "change" the hardware, though.
It's doubtful that Microsoft could send data about the Mac from VPC for Macintosh.
VPC doesn't run on a Macintosh formatted drive, per se. It creates a special file on a HFS partition (Mac format) which looks like a FAT32/FAT16 drive to VPC & Windows applications.
VPC cannot read any data, even on the host computer, that is not inside this image file (or another drive image, like a D drive, that the virutal machine doesn't "own"). In fact, it can't even read another VPC drive image (say, you set up two virtual machines, each with a copy of Windows XP) as to VPC, each drive image with an OS is a different (physical hardware) computer.
Similarly, the Mac cannot open or read this virtual drive from within Mac OS.
VPC isn't an application that runs freely on MacOS, what it does is create (software based) physical computers. You need to enable the usual sharing stuff to be able to read across the (virtual, but separate nonetheless) computers.
You need to create sharing permissions, etc as you would on any network (in your example, a cross-platform network). Although it's possible to do this stupidly, you have to work at it (ie Monty Python's "Glorious Twit").
Therefore, it can't access Mac info any more (or any less) than you would be able to if you had a Mac and PC on a LAN or WAN.
This is of course the real advantage of VPC for Windows as well; a virus infecting one virtual machine cannot infect another (unless you do what the virus normally does to propegate, ie send an infected email from one VM to another, and open it on the second). Run your buggy beta on the VM.
DMCA? Not in Germany, not in America. The article states that they pulled the info as is, prior to it's encryption (which has to be done on the local machine). They did not decrypt anything.
Well, you're the MJ expert, so I won't comment on which of the 21 CDs I found are "real albums". Currently you can buy, in stock, from HMV...
The following 3 DVDs: Dangerous/The Short Films -- Video Greatest Hits/ History/ Special Edition -- V2/ History On Film
The following 4 VHS videos: Dangerous/ The Short Films -- Moonwalker -- Video Greatest Hits/ History/ Special Edition -- V2/ History On Film
The Following 5 MiniDisks: Blood On The Dance Floor -- Dangerous -- Invincible -- Off The Wall -- Thriller
The Following Super Audio CD: Thriller
The Following 9 12" LP Records: Black or White -- Dirty Diana -- History/ Past Present & Future Book 1 (3-LP set) -- Invincible (2-LP set) -- Man In The Mirror -- Off The Wall Thriller -- Smooth Criminal -- Wanna Be Startin -- Way You Make Me Feel
The following dozen CD Singles: Bad/ Remixes -- Blood On The Dance Floor -- Cry -- Give In To Me -- Gone Too Soon/ Thriller/ Human Nature/ She's Out Of My Life -- Heal The World -- Remember The Time -- Scream/ Duet with Janet Jackson -- Scream/ 5 Mixes/ Childhood -- You Rock My World (Disk only) -- You Rock My World (Disk with additonal notes)
Leaving the 21 following CDs (release date of title in brackets): Bad/ Japan [1997] -- Bad/ Remastered [1997] -- Ben [2002] -- Best Of/ Millenium Collection/ Remastered [2001] -- Blood On The Dance Floor [1997] -- Dangerous/ Australia [2000] -- Dangerous/ Remastered [2001] -- Forever Michaeal [2002] -- Got To Be There [2002] -- History/ Past Present & Future Book 1 (2-CD set) [1995] -- Invincible [2001] -- Love Songs [2002-12-31] -- Love Songs/ Remastered [2002-02-19] -- Mowtown Legends [1994] -- Music and Me [2002] -- Off The Wall/ Remastered [2001] -- Private Talks [2001] -- Thriller/ Millenium Edition/ Limited [2000-06-30] -- Thriller/ Remastered [2001-10-16] -- Very Best Of [2002] -- V1/ History/ Greatest Hits [2001]
I "got that figure" from the newspaper The Globe and Mail, who was quoting the president of HMV, the largest CD retailer in Canada. And that's what I said in my post.
HMV carries 55 Michael Jackson titles on CD (includes CD-singles).
Therefore at your indicated minimum, MJ should be selling 7800x55 or just under a half million CDs a year in Canada in a market with 75 million annual sales.
No MJ CDs are listed in the 50 top selling disks at HMV locations in Canada.
No MJ CDs are listed in this week's Neilson SoundScan list of top 100 CDs in Canada (the official sales chart of the music industry in Canada).
Michael Jackson's CD Volume 1-Greatest Hits made No. 182 in the SoundScan Top 200 Album chart for the year 2002. No other MJ disks made the list. http://jam.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/200-1_20 02.html
Michael Jackson's single "You Rock My World" made No. 155 in the SoundScan Top 200 Sinlges chart for the year 2002. No other MJ singles made the list. http://jam.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/2002_sin gles.ht ml
From the article: "... A 2002 double-CD set of Middle Eastern and Asian songs called "The Silk Road: A Musical Caravan" has sold 7,800 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Though that is just a fraction of the sales for Eminem in a single week..."
The Globe & Mail reported on Saturday that the Michael Jackson documentary has piqued interest in his music. Quoting HMV, which has over 100 locations, they said sales of all of MJ CD's are about 40 a week nationwide.
Assuming 10% of the copies of "The Silk Road" go to Canada (pretty standard sales figures for music), that makes 780 copies (or more, as a 2002 release it may not have been out for 12 months yet), compared to the "normal" sales of about 2,000 MJ CDs (all titles). Assuming not every MJ CD was the exact same album, you may well find Silk Road outsells his most popular album.
You've nailed the problem on the head. Although many users who need "clean" power already spend extra dollars to fix the problem (power is pretty bad to begin with) adding more "hash" to the AC line won't help, and users will be forced to pay more to fix it.
Cleaning up power is expensive; the simple systems that remain effective can easily cost around $400 for a single 15A 120V circuit; and you can find you need to spend many times that.
Serious "home theatre" video systems will be almost certainly be degraded in picture and audio quality, for example. "Lunatic fringe" hi-fi nuts will absolutely hate it, as will anyone working with hi-grade test or lab equipment. These users already know how much difference cleaning up the power can make, because most of them have seen it demonstrated (and find disbelief turns to amazement).
The companies promoting this are basically saying that the average user won't be affected, so who cares about the rest? But the problem is getting worse, not better.
There may well be a point where it will affect performance of even common industrial equipment and home AC powered devices to the point where failure and under- or out-of-spec performance becomes more common.
For a more-or-less random page (the first one I found on Google with a review of a relatively inexpensive AC filter product) describing some of the issues, check out this link:
This is old news where I'm from, the company that makes the in-road traffic data system is headquartered here; they have US offices as well.
International Road Dynamics (IRD) has been installing these systems worldwide for over 20 years. They are a spin-off firm based on research at the University of Saskatchewan during the late 1970-early 1980's.
They also make the systems that incorporate GPS to track transport truck & trailers in realtime.
They have a competitor based in Europe (Germany, I think, but don't quote me) which does similar things across the pond.
Here's a news release page; you'll get the idea of exactly how common these sytems are, in general, as well as the various types of systems that can be installed and the various applications for the data generated.
You may have to fix the link, I can't seem to properly display the end where it shows as h[space]tm instead of htm
As far as the readers used to charge tolls at speed, again this is old news and like IRD, is based in Canada (in this case, Vancouver, although I don't recall the company's name. I do know they installed the Illinois system many years ago).
The second of two research projects on Bone Loss in Space, called OSTEO-2 ((Osteoporosis Experiments in Orbit-2), were performed on the STS-107 mission. The project, a research mission of the Canadian Space Agency, was to follow up on results of OSTEO-1 from STS-95, experiments which were performed by Astronaut John Glenn aboard Discovery. Preliminary results from the tests were very positive; some media reports used the term "breakthrough" to describe the results. All data was lost upon re-entry.
For our US readers: Social Insurance Numbers (SIN) are similar to Social Security Numbers. They are used for dealing with government agencies (Income Tax, Employment Insurance [read: Unemployment Insurance], etc).
You are required to provide a SIN to your employer, and to relevant government agencies. Financial institutions, such as Banks and Credit granting agencies, can ask you for your SIN, but you are not compelled to provide it, and they cannot penalize you in any way for not providing it.
It is illegal in Canada to ask for a SIN if you are not one of the above listed. There is no crime in having customer data that includes an individual's SIN, but it must be volunteered, unprompted.
It is very common for US branch companies to treat a SIN as they do a Social Security Card; go to Blockbuster in Canada and you may find a sign saying it is one of their very short list of acceptable ID. Placing a request for a SIN card on this list is illegal, as would refusing to give a Blockbuster Card to someone who refused to provide it.
Very few Canadians are aware that it's a Federal Offence to ask for a SIN, so hopefully some/. readers will be enlightened north of '49.
The missing ISM drive contained 300 SINs, possibly but not certainly encrypted.
Since information on this issue seems to be a bit lacking, I will try and fill in some of the details.
(As was mentioned) the drive was in a secure area of ISM Canada, a division of IBM which provides data services for commercial clients.
Amongs those clients was the Government of Saskatchewan, and a number of provincial agencies.
The province was very forthcoming as to the agencies affected, and which kinds of information was on that particular drive, how many people are affected by each type of informaton, and has made public disclosure very quickly. Most of the government information was encrypted, but not all. For example, the names and addresses, and the electical consumption of customers from the November 2002 bill of an electric utility are there.
Coop Life and Investor's Group are the only two private firms who have admitted to being affected. ISM indicates an undisclosed number of private firms had information on the drive, but none of them have been willing to admit a thing. Investor's group has a bunch of files regarding mutual fund accounts on the drive.
The Government has called on all affected companies to make a public statement and indicate the nature of the infomation on the drive, but has no means to compel them to do so. Thus, they haven't.
Police indicate that based on the information they have from ISM, they do not believe the data can be easily accessed. Obviously, many Slashdotters could pull it off, given a bit of luck. This does imply, though, that we're not talking about Excel spreadsheets here.
An arrest is pending, and the drive has been recovered. Police state there is no indication the person had the means to access the drive's information.
Although time will tell, from the above and other information it appears the drive was taken by an employee or contractor who wanted to pop the "free" HD into his Windows box at home. ISM was in the midst of a hardware upgrade, and the drive was supposed to remain in secure until IT could secure-wipe and dispose of the drive.
The Province has indicated it is talking to it's legal advisers, and is exploring the option of a lawsuit against ISM.
I am no expert on the details of the shuttle, but aborting in mid-flight in takeoff seems improbable. Solid fuel rockets cannot be turned off; they burn until the fuel is gone. This eliminates the possibility of aborting prior to the jettison of the booster rockets.
It may well be possible to jettison booster rockets mid-launch, but again it may not be. They're not on there for long anyway, and speeds increase dramatically on a second-by-second basis. Don't know on that one.
The shuttle itself doesn't carry much fuel, even at launch. My ignorant guess is that at least one trip around the block would be necessary to orient the shuttle and get speeds at the controllable level.
Since the shuttle needs to be oriented a certain way in atmosphere (basically, similar to the way it lands, in a nose-up configuration) actual control with survivability seems problematic should a in-flight abort be attempted. This is because the top of the shuttle (where the bay doors are) cannot withstand re-entry heat; only the bottom, sides and front can withstand these temperatures.
This shuttle had the crew equipped with a new, survivable suit. Basically the idea is that astronauts can jump out and somehow survive. I don't think NASA felt this was a good time to test them (ie as part of a in-flight launch abort) and it appears NASA felt whatever damage the loss of insulation on launch may have caused was not critical. Otherwise, a normal mission/re-entry surely would not have happened.
I live in Canada, and can tell you that these types of keys are common enough in places that care. A lawyer friend of mine had his office keyed with these over 15 years ago, and this in a relatively small community. No sure if they were the same as the link you provided, but I do know they were made in Germany.
I can't comment on your locksmith buddy's response, except to say that he may have been trying to bluff you or he just doesn't read the current literature.
"... Anyway, the technique described here requires a bunch of blank keys,..."
Actually, it requires momentary access to a single key; authorized or not (you could, for example, get a key by attacking the insecure area where it's stored, say, in a jacket at a night club).
Having more keys is handy, but not essential.
It's trivial to make an impression of a key and then cast your own blank. Metal casting kits are available for little more than lunch money at any decent Hobby Store.
[someone I know] was responsible for Y2K preparation for a National Prison system. These guys go to a few more lengths than most; despite the fact that fail-safe power was installed and tested at all facilities (including any administration or communications, say in an ordinary office building downtown somewhere) they also had to audit and test all door security.
Prisons in [this country] have many locks set to "Fail Locked"; exactly the opposite of what is required by all civilian building and fire codes. Thus the need to test and confirm all locks, in case some secure areas may have been installed or set incorrectly to "civilian" Fail-Open.
Canada has had digital radio (via DBS) for about 5 years. Didn't notice? Nobody else did either. However, rest assured that Canadian radio stations, along with those used in Europe, have been broadcasting digitally to nobody for years.
The system used by Canada is incompatible* with the XM radio system approved by the FTC in the US, so your Canadian reciever (don't have one? Neither does anyone else) won't work in America. It will work everywhere else on Earth that has digital radio, however.
Many have mentioned the major, obvious problem with demoware. If you can find a fix for them, you will be miles ahead of the competition, namely:
30 days is not enough time (I do use my computer for other things, you know).
Uninstall is a nightmare. It should be seamless and leave no traces at all. No, not even a file that says I d/l'ed a demo once. If I feel I have to reinstall to evaluate 30 more days, you shouldn't stop me.
Give me a save-disabled demo and I will give you an install-disabled customer. Nice try, see ya later.
One problem for me, that I haven't seen mentioned yet, is what do you do with the files you created? A lot of SW appropriate for a demo is complicated and if it has any power at all, hopefully you will create something useful with it. Then what?
I would like it if after the demo expired, I could still somehow use a file I created. Why would I use "real" data to generate a file that can't be opened ever again?
Now, you may think that's stupid, that you have no intention of allowing users to use your demo product to create a file that can be viewed (but not modified) or exported after the demo expires.
But, I can assure you that an orphaned file demo guarantees I won't even attempt to explore your product's features. It may be the greatest thing around, but I'm never going deep enough to find out, and you will have lost a sale to a customer who needs your stuff but doesn't know it.
I think it's also important to realise what the process involves. You have me interested enough to jump through a few hoops. Anybody in sales & marketing will tell you that it's very expensive to get there with a customer.
Now (after I agree to a trial), I have a real-world experience with your product and your company. What happens next determines whether the sale goes through or you have to spend the major portion of your marketing budget to get to the same place with another customer. So work with me on this, okay?
If the bean counters balk at that much power in your demos, you should consider offering a working previous version to evaluators, or offer a "lite" version. If I can use it, I will upgrade sooner or later, and your installed base grows. Last time I checked, that's the secret to getting market dominance.
Apparently, some versions of cydoor (the spyware/ad trojan installed with Kazza) installed first, before the Kazza installer displays anything on your screen. Decline to install Kazza, but you still had cydoor running (next reboot, as a startup process). This is not the kind of behavior typical of any benign intent.
Criticism apparently caused cydoor to create a new (current) version, with some offensive behaviour allegedly removed (UID, install upon launch of the host program's installer, "uninstaller" does nothing, etc).
Still, extending any form of trust to the likes of cydoor and Kazza is simply out of the question. "A leopard can't change his spots".
Get Ad-Aware now, everybody (using or administrating Windows); but don't stop there. After all you are simply trusting one program to save you from another.
The sad truth is viligance and awareness is our only defense.
You use one or the other depending on what you want. A key point with conductive concrete is it's best used as an outdoor slab (not heating an enclosed space) and it only has to keep the thermal mass at about 33 degrees F when it's snowing (and never warmer). When your temp differential is high (ie it's -10F or colder) it rarely snows (atmosphere can't hold much moisture, so the weather system dumps it's snow somewhere warmer before it got to you. Remember the Arctic is technically a desert), so it's OK if the slab is only +20F or colder, with a simple non-feedback system. So you're only trying to heat at about 30 degrees above ambient you can incorporate feedback (temperature measuring and control) to reduce input energy even more.
Radiant heating works best when you're trying to heat an enclosed space. Consider the envornment and pick the appropriate technology. Where I live, radiant (hot water in concrete) is pretty common, but you wouldn't try to heat the driveway that way, because you would have to maintain probably about +40F even when it's -40F outdoors (an 80 degree differential). You need some amount of overheating as a way of preventing failure, if you heating system freezes it is totally useless and needs almost complete rebuilding. Certain antifreeze systems can be employed but they have other problems; in general you should build it with enough BTUs and backups to keep it above freezing at all envisioned temperatures and power outages. Electic hot water boilers are common but natural gas is readily available here so most people use a gas over electric (for backup) system.
Since radiant can be electically heated and it's slightly less efficent than thermal (electricity to water to concrete to objects vs electricity to concrete) it's not a given that it would be more efficent.
"... A relatively more significant issue to worry about are the runways themselves. The numbers on the ends of runways are the first two digits of the magnetic heading corresponding to the runway direction. If the poles flipped, these numbers would all have to be updated...."
Normally you would think so. But remember, this is Aviation we're talking about. Speed and distance: knots and miles per hour. Official Language: English. Fuel management: Pounds (converted to gallons or litres by weight). GPS? Illegal to use as a primary navigation device (only recently "officially" allowed in the cockpit, now allowed as a backup only). The world's aviation authorities make the average government committee appear to move at the speed of light.
In other words, they wouldn't waste a drop of paint on it; they would just declare the old Mag Pole the standard (and would probably take 6 years to "study it"). In the meantime, calibrate your compass card and plot a course on your map with a pencil.
Good landing: any landing where you can still walk from the aircraft. Excellent landing: any landing where you can still fly with the aircraft.
The Mag Pole is moving all the time. There is absoutely no way to predict for certain where it may go next. Apparently CNN takes pure speculation as predicting the future. It could just as easily end up in Atlanta, or (as has happened before in Earth's history) abruptly switch polarity and end up in Chile or the South Pole.
"... The honeymooners did not make the trip, but other couples, also believing that the location nurtures fertility, have chartered small planes to the forbidden spot, set up tents on the ice and conducted their business...."
Umm, that's "forbidding", not "forbidden". Go there anytime ya want.
You could read the entire PDF, which indicates the process and the fact that a timetable for hearings has not even been decided yet.
The chance that the levies will pass as proposed are next to zero; the last time this was proposed (1999) musicians asked for $3 per cassette and the final amount was determined to be 23.3 cents. For unrelated reasons, the 1999 proposal lapsed and was never implemented.
Just like last time (and all the other times, this is not the first) there will be a large number of formal objections from importers, retailers, manufacturers, computer industry representatives, etc; even if you don't utter a peep.
This "pesky little law" that you refer to is a provision of NAFTA that (for the first time, anywhere) allows companies to sue governments directly for loss of reputation or market.
I am very sorry to hear California is the latest victim; the clause was a major sticking point for Canada but was also firmly insisted upon by business interests (on both sides of the border) and was presented by the US side as a non-negotiable condition of adoption of the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement ("FTA", the predecessor of NAFTA, which added Mexico).
CA prohibits both MTBE and MMT; the latter a product of New Jersey-based Ethyl Corporation (the fine folks who brought us leaded gas).
The suit you refer to is almost certainly a direct result of Ethyl sucessfully suing Canada under NAFTA (link below) to compensate for Canada's banning of MMT in retail gasoline (it's not used in US pump gas, for health and envornmental reasons). Canada was forced to pay cash compensation and cannot legally prohibit MMT in Canadian gas; in fact it's the only place where MMT is found in retail gasoline; the enviornmental law was deemed an illegal trade practise under NAFTA.
It seems a Canadian company has wised up to this dangerous provision in order to do the same thing to California; I'm afraid they have a strong case and this clearly reinforces what some grass-roots objectors to FTA in both our countries warned about (naturally, the objections were dismissed as fear-mongering by FTA proponnents).
I think you would find very, very strong support in Canada to amend this provision of NAFTA and if California would object to Congress; there may be some hope for all of us.
Slashdot Mirror
The "current version" (and all older versions) of VPC runs DOS (pre-installed).
Virtual PC (for Mac or Windows) is a separate application that emulates hardware. The OS is not a part of VPC. When you buy VPC with an included Windows OS, the hardware sticker is included on the OEM documentation (normally the maker of the computer places this sticker on a physical PC).
You can buy VPC with a pre-configured drive image that includes a Windows OS. You still have to go through many of the installation steps you would on a Dell (for example) to get it up, and Microsoft sells this OS to Connectix (or itself in about 6 months) as an OEM version.
You can also buy any number of copies of Windows from Microsoft and install it on any number of VPC virutal machines.
Finally, you could install any x86 OS on the VPC virtual machine. The usual compatibilty and configuration issues will be there; if your chosen OS is incompatible with some part of the virtual hardware, you would not be able to "change" the hardware, though.
It's doubtful that Microsoft could send data about the Mac from VPC for Macintosh.
VPC doesn't run on a Macintosh formatted drive, per se. It creates a special file on a HFS partition (Mac format) which looks like a FAT32/FAT16 drive to VPC & Windows applications.
VPC cannot read any data, even on the host computer, that is not inside this image file (or another drive image, like a D drive, that the virutal machine doesn't "own"). In fact, it can't even read another VPC drive image (say, you set up two virtual machines, each with a copy of Windows XP) as to VPC, each drive image with an OS is a different (physical hardware) computer.
Similarly, the Mac cannot open or read this virtual drive from within Mac OS.
VPC isn't an application that runs freely on MacOS, what it does is create (software based) physical computers. You need to enable the usual sharing stuff to be able to read across the (virtual, but separate nonetheless) computers.
You need to create sharing permissions, etc as you would on any network (in your example, a cross-platform network). Although it's possible to do this stupidly, you have to work at it (ie Monty Python's "Glorious Twit").
Therefore, it can't access Mac info any more (or any less) than you would be able to if you had a Mac and PC on a LAN or WAN.
This is of course the real advantage of VPC for Windows as well; a virus infecting one virtual machine cannot infect another (unless you do what the virus normally does to propegate, ie send an infected email from one VM to another, and open it on the second). Run your buggy beta on the VM.
DMCA? Not in Germany, not in America.
The article states that they pulled the info as is, prior to it's encryption (which has to be done on the local machine). They did not decrypt anything.
My apologies. ;-)
Even worse, I may be becoming one
Well, you're the MJ expert, so I won't comment on which of the 21 CDs I found are "real albums". Currently you can buy, in stock, from HMV ...
The following 3 DVDs:
Dangerous/The Short Films -- Video Greatest Hits/ History/ Special Edition -- V2/ History On Film
The following 4 VHS videos:
Dangerous/ The Short Films -- Moonwalker -- Video Greatest Hits/ History/ Special Edition -- V2/ History On Film
The Following 5 MiniDisks:
Blood On The Dance Floor -- Dangerous -- Invincible -- Off The Wall -- Thriller
The Following Super Audio CD:
Thriller
The Following 9 12" LP Records:
Black or White -- Dirty Diana -- History/ Past Present & Future Book 1 (3-LP set) -- Invincible (2-LP set) -- Man In The Mirror -- Off The Wall Thriller -- Smooth Criminal -- Wanna Be Startin -- Way You Make Me Feel
The following dozen CD Singles:
Bad/ Remixes -- Blood On The Dance Floor -- Cry -- Give In To Me -- Gone Too Soon/ Thriller/ Human Nature/ She's Out Of My Life -- Heal The World -- Remember The Time -- Scream/ Duet with Janet Jackson -- Scream/ 5 Mixes/ Childhood -- You Rock My World (Disk only) -- You Rock My World (Disk with additonal notes)
Leaving the 21 following CDs (release date of title in brackets):
Bad/ Japan [1997] -- Bad/ Remastered [1997] -- Ben [2002] -- Best Of/ Millenium Collection/ Remastered [2001] -- Blood On The Dance Floor [1997] -- Dangerous/ Australia [2000] -- Dangerous/ Remastered [2001] -- Forever Michaeal [2002] -- Got To Be There [2002] -- History/ Past Present & Future Book 1 (2-CD set) [1995] -- Invincible [2001] -- Love Songs [2002-12-31] -- Love Songs/ Remastered [2002-02-19] -- Mowtown Legends [1994] -- Music and Me [2002] -- Off The Wall/ Remastered [2001] -- Private Talks [2001] -- Thriller/ Millenium Edition/ Limited [2000-06-30] -- Thriller/ Remastered [2001-10-16] -- Very Best Of [2002] -- V1/ History/ Greatest Hits [2001]
I "got that figure" from the newspaper The Globe and Mail, who was quoting the president of HMV, the largest CD retailer in Canada. And that's what I said in my post.
0 02.html
n gles.ht ml
HMV carries 55 Michael Jackson titles on CD (includes CD-singles).
Therefore at your indicated minimum, MJ should be selling 7800x55 or just under a half million CDs a year in Canada in a market with 75 million annual sales.
No MJ CDs are listed in the 50 top selling disks at HMV locations in Canada.
No MJ CDs are listed in this week's Neilson SoundScan list of top 100 CDs in Canada (the official sales chart of the music industry in Canada).
Michael Jackson's CD Volume 1-Greatest Hits made No. 182 in the SoundScan Top 200 Album chart for the year 2002. No other MJ disks made the list.
http://jam.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/200-1_2
Michael Jackson's single "You Rock My World" made No. 155 in the SoundScan Top 200 Sinlges chart for the year 2002. No other MJ singles made the list.
http://jam.canoe.ca/JamMusicCharts/2002_si
From the article: ... A 2002 double-CD set of Middle Eastern and Asian songs called "The Silk Road: A Musical Caravan" has sold 7,800 copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan. ..."
"
Though that is just a fraction of the sales for Eminem in a single week
The Globe & Mail reported on Saturday that the Michael Jackson documentary has piqued interest in his music. Quoting HMV, which has over 100 locations, they said sales of all of MJ CD's are about 40 a week nationwide.
Assuming 10% of the copies of "The Silk Road" go to Canada (pretty standard sales figures for music), that makes 780 copies (or more, as a 2002 release it may not have been out for 12 months yet), compared to the "normal" sales of about 2,000 MJ CDs (all titles). Assuming not every MJ CD was the exact same album, you may well find Silk Road outsells his most popular album.
You've nailed the problem on the head. Although many users who need "clean" power already spend extra dollars to fix the problem (power is pretty bad to begin with) adding more "hash" to the AC line won't help, and users will be forced to pay more to fix it.
i o_ uo_15a_highcurrent.htm
Cleaning up power is expensive; the simple systems that remain effective can easily cost around $400 for a single 15A 120V circuit; and you can find you need to spend many times that.
Serious "home theatre" video systems will be almost certainly be degraded in picture and audio quality, for example. "Lunatic fringe" hi-fi nuts will absolutely hate it, as will anyone working with hi-grade test or lab equipment. These users already know how much difference cleaning up the power can make, because most of them have seen it demonstrated (and find disbelief turns to amazement).
The companies promoting this are basically saying that the average user won't be affected, so who cares about the rest? But the problem is getting worse, not better.
There may well be a point where it will affect performance of even common industrial equipment and home AC powered devices to the point where failure and under- or out-of-spec performance becomes more common.
For a more-or-less random page (the first one I found on Google with a review of a relatively inexpensive AC filter product) describing some of the issues, check out this link:
http://www.hometheatersound.com/equipment/psaud
This is old news where I'm from, the company that makes the in-road traffic data system is headquartered here; they have US offices as well.
x .h tm
International Road Dynamics (IRD) has been installing these systems worldwide for over 20 years. They are a spin-off firm based on research at the University of Saskatchewan during the late 1970-early 1980's.
They also make the systems that incorporate GPS to track transport truck & trailers in realtime.
They have a competitor based in Europe (Germany, I think, but don't quote me) which does similar things across the pond.
Here's a news release page; you'll get the idea of exactly how common these sytems are, in general, as well as the various types of systems that can be installed and the various applications for the data generated.
http://www.irdinc.com/english/html/ir/news/inde
You may have to fix the link, I can't seem to properly display the end where it shows as h[space]tm instead of htm
As far as the readers used to charge tolls at speed, again this is old news and like IRD, is based in Canada (in this case, Vancouver, although I don't recall the company's name. I do know they installed the Illinois system many years ago).
The second of two research projects on Bone Loss in Space, called OSTEO-2 ((Osteoporosis Experiments in Orbit-2), were performed on the STS-107 mission.
The project, a research mission of the Canadian Space Agency, was to follow up on results of OSTEO-1 from STS-95, experiments which were performed by Astronaut John Glenn aboard Discovery.
Preliminary results from the tests were very positive; some media reports used the term "breakthrough" to describe the results.
All data was lost upon re-entry.
For our US readers:
/. readers will be enlightened north of '49.
Social Insurance Numbers (SIN) are similar to Social Security Numbers. They are used for dealing with government agencies (Income Tax, Employment Insurance [read: Unemployment Insurance], etc).
You are required to provide a SIN to your employer, and to relevant government agencies. Financial institutions, such as Banks and Credit granting agencies, can ask you for your SIN, but you are not compelled to provide it, and they cannot penalize you in any way for not providing it.
It is illegal in Canada to ask for a SIN if you are not one of the above listed. There is no crime in having customer data that includes an individual's SIN, but it must be volunteered, unprompted.
It is very common for US branch companies to treat a SIN as they do a Social Security Card; go to Blockbuster in Canada and you may find a sign saying it is one of their very short list of acceptable ID. Placing a request for a SIN card on this list is illegal, as would refusing to give a Blockbuster Card to someone who refused to provide it.
Very few Canadians are aware that it's a Federal Offence to ask for a SIN, so hopefully some
The missing ISM drive contained 300 SINs, possibly but not certainly encrypted.
Since information on this issue seems to be a bit lacking, I will try and fill in some of the details.
(As was mentioned) the drive was in a secure area of ISM Canada, a division of IBM which provides data services for commercial clients.
Amongs those clients was the Government of Saskatchewan, and a number of provincial agencies.
The province was very forthcoming as to the agencies affected, and which kinds of information was on that particular drive, how many people are affected by each type of informaton, and has made public disclosure very quickly. Most of the government information was encrypted, but not all. For example, the names and addresses, and the electical consumption of customers from the November 2002 bill of an electric utility are there.
Coop Life and Investor's Group are the only two private firms who have admitted to being affected. ISM indicates an undisclosed number of private firms had information on the drive, but none of them have been willing to admit a thing. Investor's group has a bunch of files regarding mutual fund accounts on the drive.
The Government has called on all affected companies to make a public statement and indicate the nature of the infomation on the drive, but has no means to compel them to do so. Thus, they haven't.
Police indicate that based on the information they have from ISM, they do not believe the data can be easily accessed. Obviously, many Slashdotters could pull it off, given a bit of luck. This does imply, though, that we're not talking about Excel spreadsheets here.
An arrest is pending, and the drive has been recovered. Police state there is no indication the person had the means to access the drive's information.
Although time will tell, from the above and other information it appears the drive was taken by an employee or contractor who wanted to pop the "free" HD into his Windows box at home. ISM was in the midst of a hardware upgrade, and the drive was supposed to remain in secure until IT could secure-wipe and dispose of the drive.
The Province has indicated it is talking to it's legal advisers, and is exploring the option of a lawsuit against ISM.
I am no expert on the details of the shuttle, but aborting in mid-flight in takeoff seems improbable. Solid fuel rockets cannot be turned off; they burn until the fuel is gone. This eliminates the possibility of aborting prior to the jettison of the booster rockets.
It may well be possible to jettison booster rockets mid-launch, but again it may not be. They're not on there for long anyway, and speeds increase dramatically on a second-by-second basis. Don't know on that one.
The shuttle itself doesn't carry much fuel, even at launch. My ignorant guess is that at least one trip around the block would be necessary to orient the shuttle and get speeds at the controllable level.
Since the shuttle needs to be oriented a certain way in atmosphere (basically, similar to the way it lands, in a nose-up configuration) actual control with survivability seems problematic should a in-flight abort be attempted. This is because the top of the shuttle (where the bay doors are) cannot withstand re-entry heat; only the bottom, sides and front can withstand these temperatures.
This shuttle had the crew equipped with a new, survivable suit. Basically the idea is that astronauts can jump out and somehow survive. I don't think NASA felt this was a good time to test them (ie as part of a in-flight launch abort) and it appears NASA felt whatever damage the loss of insulation on launch may have caused was not critical. Otherwise, a normal mission/re-entry surely would not have happened.
I live in Canada, and can tell you that these types of keys are common enough in places that care. A lawyer friend of mine had his office keyed with these over 15 years ago, and this in a relatively small community. No sure if they were the same as the link you provided, but I do know they were made in Germany.
I can't comment on your locksmith buddy's response, except to say that he may have been trying to bluff you or he just doesn't read the current literature.
"... Anyway, the technique described here requires a bunch of blank keys, ..."
Actually, it requires momentary access to a single key; authorized or not (you could, for example, get a key by attacking the insecure area where it's stored, say, in a jacket at a night club).
Having more keys is handy, but not essential.
It's trivial to make an impression of a key and then cast your own blank. Metal casting kits are available for little more than lunch money at any decent Hobby Store.
[someone I know] was responsible for Y2K preparation for a National Prison system. These guys go to a few more lengths than most; despite the fact that fail-safe power was installed and tested at all facilities (including any administration or communications, say in an ordinary office building downtown somewhere) they also had to audit and test all door security.
Prisons in [this country] have many locks set to "Fail Locked"; exactly the opposite of what is required by all civilian building and fire codes. Thus the need to test and confirm all locks, in case some secure areas may have been installed or set incorrectly to "civilian" Fail-Open.
The Canadian Government keeps not a penny of the levy; they do not even attempt to recoup their own costs.
100% is paid to SOCAN, the musician's group responsible for paying royalties to musicians (from levies, public broadcast, whatever).
Canada has had digital radio (via DBS) for about 5 years. Didn't notice? Nobody else did either. However, rest assured that Canadian radio stations, along with those used in Europe, have been broadcasting digitally to nobody for years.
The system used by Canada is incompatible* with the XM radio system approved by the FTC in the US, so your Canadian reciever (don't have one? Neither does anyone else) won't work in America. It will work everywhere else on Earth that has digital radio, however.
Many have mentioned the major, obvious problem with demoware. If you can find a fix for them, you will be miles ahead of the competition, namely:
30 days is not enough time (I do use my computer for other things, you know).
Uninstall is a nightmare. It should be seamless and leave no traces at all. No, not even a file that says I d/l'ed a demo once. If I feel I have to reinstall to evaluate 30 more days, you shouldn't stop me.
Give me a save-disabled demo and I will give you an install-disabled customer. Nice try, see ya later.
One problem for me, that I haven't seen mentioned yet, is what do you do with the files you created? A lot of SW appropriate for a demo is complicated and if it has any power at all, hopefully you will create something useful with it. Then what?
I would like it if after the demo expired, I could still somehow use a file I created. Why would I use "real" data to generate a file that can't be opened ever again?
Now, you may think that's stupid, that you have no intention of allowing users to use your demo product to create a file that can be viewed (but not modified) or exported after the demo expires.
But, I can assure you that an orphaned file demo guarantees I won't even attempt to explore your product's features. It may be the greatest thing around, but I'm never going deep enough to find out, and you will have lost a sale to a customer who needs your stuff but doesn't know it.
I think it's also important to realise what the process involves. You have me interested enough to jump through a few hoops. Anybody in sales & marketing will tell you that it's very expensive to get there with a customer.
Now (after I agree to a trial), I have a real-world experience with your product and your company. What happens next determines whether the sale goes through or you have to spend the major portion of your marketing budget to get to the same place with another customer. So work with me on this, okay?
If the bean counters balk at that much power in your demos, you should consider offering a working previous version to evaluators, or offer a "lite" version. If I can use it, I will upgrade sooner or later, and your installed base grows. Last time I checked, that's the secret to getting market dominance.
Apparently, some versions of cydoor (the spyware/ad trojan installed with Kazza) installed first, before the Kazza installer displays anything on your screen. Decline to install Kazza, but you still had cydoor running (next reboot, as a startup process). This is not the kind of behavior typical of any benign intent.
Criticism apparently caused cydoor to create a new (current) version, with some offensive behaviour allegedly removed (UID, install upon launch of the host program's installer, "uninstaller" does nothing, etc).
Still, extending any form of trust to the likes of cydoor and Kazza is simply out of the question. "A leopard can't change his spots".
Get Ad-Aware now, everybody (using or administrating Windows); but don't stop there. After all you are simply trusting one program to save you from another.
The sad truth is viligance and awareness is our only defense.
About CyDoor:
http://www.cexx.org/cydoor.htm
You use one or the other depending on what you want. A key point with conductive concrete is it's best used as an outdoor slab (not heating an enclosed space) and it only has to keep the thermal mass at about 33 degrees F when it's snowing (and never warmer). When your temp differential is high (ie it's -10F or colder) it rarely snows (atmosphere can't hold much moisture, so the weather system dumps it's snow somewhere warmer before it got to you. Remember the Arctic is technically a desert), so it's OK if the slab is only +20F or colder, with a simple non-feedback system. So you're only trying to heat at about 30 degrees above ambient you can incorporate feedback (temperature measuring and control) to reduce input energy even more.
Radiant heating works best when you're trying to heat an enclosed space. Consider the envornment and pick the appropriate technology. Where I live, radiant (hot water in concrete) is pretty common, but you wouldn't try to heat the driveway that way, because you would have to maintain probably about +40F even when it's -40F outdoors (an 80 degree differential). You need some amount of overheating as a way of preventing failure, if you heating system freezes it is totally useless and needs almost complete rebuilding. Certain antifreeze systems can be employed but they have other problems; in general you should build it with enough BTUs and backups to keep it above freezing at all envisioned temperatures and power outages. Electic hot water boilers are common but natural gas is readily available here so most people use a gas over electric (for backup) system.
Since radiant can be electically heated and it's slightly less efficent than thermal (electricity to water to concrete to objects vs electricity to concrete) it's not a given that it would be more efficent.
"... A relatively more significant issue to worry about are the runways themselves. The numbers on the ends of runways are the first two digits of the magnetic heading corresponding to the runway direction. If the poles flipped, these numbers would all have to be updated. ..."
Normally you would think so. But remember, this is Aviation we're talking about. Speed and distance: knots and miles per hour. Official Language: English. Fuel management: Pounds (converted to gallons or litres by weight). GPS? Illegal to use as a primary navigation device (only recently "officially" allowed in the cockpit, now allowed as a backup only). The world's aviation authorities make the average government committee appear to move at the speed of light.
In other words, they wouldn't waste a drop of paint on it; they would just declare the old Mag Pole the standard (and would probably take 6 years to "study it"). In the meantime, calibrate your compass card and plot a course on your map with a pencil.
Good landing: any landing where you can still walk from the aircraft.
Excellent landing: any landing where you can still fly with the aircraft.
The Mag Pole is moving all the time. There is absoutely no way to predict for certain where it may go next.
..."
Apparently CNN takes pure speculation as predicting the future. It could just as easily end up in Atlanta, or (as has happened before in Earth's history) abruptly switch polarity and end up in Chile or the South Pole.
"... The honeymooners did not make the trip, but other couples, also believing that the location nurtures fertility, have chartered small planes to the forbidden spot, set up tents on the ice and conducted their business.
Umm, that's "forbidding", not "forbidden". Go there anytime ya want.
You could read the entire PDF, which indicates the process and the fact that a timetable for hearings has not even been decided yet.
The chance that the levies will pass as proposed are next to zero; the last time this was proposed (1999) musicians asked for $3 per cassette and the final amount was determined to be 23.3 cents. For unrelated reasons, the 1999 proposal lapsed and was never implemented.
Just like last time (and all the other times, this is not the first) there will be a large number of formal objections from importers, retailers, manufacturers, computer industry representatives, etc; even if you don't utter a peep.
This "pesky little law" that you refer to is a provision of NAFTA that (for the first time, anywhere) allows companies to sue governments directly for loss of reputation or market.
h yl .htm
I am very sorry to hear California is the latest victim; the clause was a major sticking point for Canada but was also firmly insisted upon by business interests (on both sides of the border) and was presented by the US side as a non-negotiable condition of adoption of the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement ("FTA", the predecessor of NAFTA, which added Mexico).
CA prohibits both MTBE and MMT; the latter a product of New Jersey-based Ethyl Corporation (the fine folks who brought us leaded gas).
The suit you refer to is almost certainly a direct result of Ethyl sucessfully suing Canada under NAFTA (link below) to compensate for Canada's banning of MMT in retail gasoline (it's not used in US pump gas, for health and envornmental reasons). Canada was forced to pay cash compensation and cannot legally prohibit MMT in Canadian gas; in fact it's the only place where MMT is found in retail gasoline; the enviornmental law was deemed an illegal trade practise under NAFTA.
It seems a Canadian company has wised up to this dangerous provision in order to do the same thing to California; I'm afraid they have a strong case and this clearly reinforces what some grass-roots objectors to FTA in both our countries warned about (naturally, the objections were dismissed as fear-mongering by FTA proponnents).
I think you would find very, very strong support in Canada to amend this provision of NAFTA and if California would object to Congress; there may be some hope for all of us.
http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/envronmt/et