Only 6,000,000? Surely your mail server can handle more than that?
Looks like you've got some spare bandwith there buddy. Can I possibly interest you in a new diploma, penis enlargement, nude pictures of various Hollywood babes, a new credit card, a low, low, rate mortgage and a my exclusive guide in how to make a million on the stock market?
It's hard for kids these days to imagine a PC with anything less than 128MB of RAM and a graphics card equipped with 32MB of it's own (512MB and 64MB are typical figures on newer PCs and graphics cards) but, back in the day, we got by just fine with only a few KB to play around with.
Sure, Tank and Space Invaders on the Atari 2600 weren't deep, multi-layered games but they did provide hours of fun. Similarly, Paradroid, Wizball and even Elite, the cream of the crop on the Commodore 64 would seem dull and shallow to most of the new generation of gamers used to the depth of Grand Theft Auto 3, Starcraft or EverQuest.
But, to those of us who were gaming back then, these titles were as immersive and addictive as anything available today. Hell, I still fire up VICE (the best C64 emulator available) to play some of those titles today, and not just for nostalic reasons - back then, without the flashy graphics and sound games had to be immediately playable and fun or else they just didn't capture the imagination.
Who remembers breaking joysticks waggling them back and forth playing Track and Field? Who remembers the pride they felt when they finally reached Elite status? Or when they completed Impossible Mission? The shear unadulterated fun of playing Pong and Breakout for hours on end, not giving a damn that the last five minutes weren't at all visually distinguishable from the first five?
It's funny, but even though I'm an avid gamer I've bought fewer games in the last two years than I have in any one year before that, going back as far as 1983. Partially this is because today's games have more depth to them, but mainly it's because there are fewer and fewer titles that really enthuse me any more.
The lack of originality in the games industry today is part of it - I haven't seen a truly original game since Populous - but, ironically, I don't think that today's games capture the imagination half as much as the games of yesteryear.
It's sad that an ignorant foot like you who probably doesn't even own a passport let alone have any first-hand experience of Britain should post crap like this as if you're some kind of authority on the subject.
Let me debunk some of your disinformation for the benefit of those who are more interested in the truth rather than sensationalism:
Anyone who cares to visit UK towns late at night will see the usual muggers and vandals, all wearing the same identical grey sweatshirts and anoraks with identical deep grey hoods.
I live and work in London and I regularly go out late at night in and around the capital. I've done so for over 15 years. Total number of times I've been attacked in the street: 0.
Contrary to your anecdotal opinion, the streets aren't lined up with muggers and vandals looking to relieve me of my wallet or smash up shop windows.
Similarly, not every street corner in the average American city is populated by crack dealers looking to sell you a fix, crack whores looking to blow you to earn one, or crack heads looking to pop a cap in your ass.
The CCTV cameras may catch drunks who are too stoned to care - another delightful facet of UK life - but will then have no deterrent effect whatsoever.
Drunks don't get stoned. Drunks get drunk. Stoners get stoned. Duh.
That aside, alcoholism isn't half the issue here that it is in the US, so please don't suggest that drunken rampaging youths are as prominent as you seem to think muggers and vandals are.
Yes, people sometimes leave a pub, club or a bar drunk but let's not pretend that doesn't happen in the US. In fact, when I was at university, the people who got the most drunk and the most wrecked on a regular basis were overseas students from, surprise, surprise, the US. Yet, amazingly, I don't have a mental picture of all Americans having a drinking problem (apart, of course, from the George W. Bush and family).
The simple problem is that for the last 30+ years the UK has put large amounts of money into policing Northern Ireland and playing at being a world power (despite being poorer than Germany, France or Italy which don't play those games any more) and is now too cheap to have a proper police force.
First of all, when was Italy ever a world power? Or when did France and Germany ever have empires that were on par with the British empire? Ever heard of Canada, Australia, India, etc, all former British colonies?
I think you need to buy a new history text book and a new atlas because the ones that you've got now are useless.
Secondly, since when was the UK economy inferior to Italy's? It's probably ahead or on par with that of France and, perhaps, a notch or two behind Germany's. But, given that both France and Germany have bigger populations (much bigger in Germany's case), that's hardly surprising is it? I don't have exact figures to hand but I know that the GDP per capita of all three countries isn't more than a few percentage points apart. So, I ask you, how are we poorer than Germany, France and Italy?
While you're browsing Amazon for those school books why don't you pick up an economy text as well?
All this biometric scan and CCTV stuff is about trying to do things on no money, while wasting nearly $10 billion a year putting wall to wall police and soldiers into NI and supporting its backward economy.
Sorry, but you seem to be stuck in the 1980s. Perhaps I could interest you in living in the 21st century?
There haven't been troops actively patrolling Northern Ireland for many years now. The peace process there is advanced - although not as advanced as I or many others would like - and the levels of sectarian violence are almost non-existant. The cost of policing in Northern Ireland isn't a multi-billion dollar operation, not by a long shot.
Backward economy? Sure, the troubles in Northern Ireland hurt the local economy but people aren't exactly living in caves there. There are jobs there just like there are jobs everywhere, and, now that peace has finally broken out, a lot more employers are looking to open up sites in Northern Ireland.
The UK is now about to build 2 aircraft carriers to, and I quote the BBC, "Project UK power around the world".
The Royal Navy's commissioned two new carriers to replace two aging ones that are being decommissioned. The Navy's aircraft carriers HMS Invincible and HMS Hermes were the vital cogs in liberating the Falkland Islands after the 1982 Argentinian invasion. Without them, there would have been no way that the islanders could have been freed, proof enough that their not just for show.
The Fleet Air Arm also played a critical role in the Gulf War, and is on standby to perform its duty there once again should Britain go to war with Iraq once more.
So what's your point here? That Britain, an island state with dependencies in every ocean, shouldn't have a navy capable of protecting its interests?
Its Prime Minister wants to go and sort out foreign countries while at home the infrastructure is falling apart and, in a country where handguns are banned, gun crime is rising faster than any other.
Yeah, well I agree with you there. Our Prime Minister spends too much time worrying about standing "shoulder to shoulder" with George W. Bush than he should. I don't want a war with Iraq and neither do 90 percent of the British public. 75 percent don't trust George W. Bush either. 90 percent are convinced that he'll go to war with Iraq no matter what the UN inspectors report. It's sad that our PM is dragging us into a war that we don't want just so he can be Dubya's best friend.
Your gun crime argument is more crap though. Bare in mind that the total number of gun crimes in the whole UK for the whole of 2002 was around 3,900. And also consider that the definition of a gun crime includes waving around a replica (ie, imitation) firearm just as much as it does a crime that involves an actual gun. The number of actual gun crimes that involved a gun actually being fired was probably one fifth or one tenth of that figure.
Still, 3,900-odd gun crimes in a country with a population of 65 million. Compared to how many in a country with a population of 300 million (the USA)?
I've got more chance of being hit by lightning or winning the national lottery (14 million to 1 odds) than being shot by someone in the street. Can you say the same?
Yep, gun crime sure is "out of control" over here.
It's a pity that George keeps pandering to his little pal Tony instead of telling him to go home, sort out his own crappy country and shut the fsck up.
Oh I wish it were so. What you don't seem to realise is that just about every country on the planet, even America's oldest and closest allies, is opposed to George W. Bush's foreign policy blunders - Kyoto, missile treaties, landmines, the International Criminal Court, steel tariffs (free trade, pah!), the ongoing Middle East crisis, and, above all, war with Iraq.
If it wasn't for Tony Blair's poodle impression then George W. Bush would be all alone in wanting to go to war with Iraq. Bush needs Blair's support - not the other way around. What's amazing is that he's willing to give it, despite the overwhelming opposition of the British electorate. If the situation were reversed, and Americans voters were opposed to helping Britain fight a war, there's no way that Bush would lift a finger.
So, as you can see, your world view and, even your local view of Britain, is pretty off the ball. How you can open your mouth to offer such off-base opinions is amazing. In future, please try to restrict your comments to subjects on which you actually know something about. That way you'll save me the trouble of another lenghty posting rebutting such mindless and misinformed drivel.
People defrauding the goverment (and by extension, tax payers) out of billions of pounds of state benefits (welfare) need to be stopped.
Photo ID cards can't do that for many reasons (for one thing, people can change their appearance easily enough) but biometric ID recognition is harder to circumvent (it's pretty hard to change your retinal scan at will when collared by a benefits agency worker).
An ideal system would seem to be a combination of the two - a card that has a signature and a photo on it combined with centrally held biometric data that only key governmental agencies can access.
In this scenario, the "hacked database giving access to thousands of IDs" nightmare is unlikely. The motivation behind ID theft is profit - stealing someone's ID for fraudulent use - and any hacker capable of breaking into secure government networks and servers would surely be better off targetting banks and big corporations.
For one thing, hacking a bank is instantly profitable and involves little additional work, and, for another, the potential drawback if detected and caught is far less serious when attacking a financial institution - most companies won't even acknowledge that they've been hacked, let alone go after a prosecution, whilst governments have the will and the firepower to persue and punish transgressors to the full extent of the law.
That ignorant trolls like you get modded up as "insightful" or "interesting" is sad.
Here, for those who are interested in the truth, are the facts:
1. The overwhelming majority of CCTV in the UK are privately owned and maintained.
Stores, shopping precincts, bars, airports, train stations, etc are, just like in the US, privately-owned premises. And, just like in the US, they have CCTV cameras installed for security and safety purposes.
Where's the problem here? Shouldn't a store owner be entitled to put a camera up in his shop to deter would-be shop-lifters? Shouldn't an airport or a train station have cameras installed to monitor passenger traffic flow and thereby ensure passenger safety?
Would you be happier if the store owner felt less secure whilst earning his livelyhood or if the occassional passenger fell onto the tracks because a station platform was dangerously overcrowded?
2. The majority of government-owned cameras are watching the roads.
Again, these are mainly concerned with the safety of road users. Monitoring traffic jams and detecting motorists speeding through red lights isn't exactly a Big Brother scenario - so why make it out to be?
3. A minority of government-owned cameras are installed in and around high security installations and other potential terrorist targets.
Number one on this list is the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square. The area around that building is CCTV city, and has been for some time. Gee, I wonder why? Is it because the British goverment is obsessed with what the US Ambassador is having for lunch, or is it because it's a terrorist target?
Gee, let me think...
(Not too long ago, you could drive around all four sides of Grosvenor Square. But, some time in the last decade or so, some bright spark decided it was far too tempting to a potential car bomber and the side that houses the US Embassy was blocked off and protected with anti-tank measures. Not even Buckingham Palace or Downing Street are that secure. Next time you're in town, check it out - it makes Fort Knox look like an open air picnic camp.)
It's worth bearing in mind that Britain's been a terrorist target for over 30 years now. The IRA has been blowing up bombs, killing men, women and children all over Britain whilst freely raising funds in the US since before I was born. We can't (and won't) live in a society where there's someone watching you on every street corner so the security forces use CCTV cameras where they have to to ensure public safety.
(For the benefit of the "cameras can't stop terrorists" brigade, I'll point out now that IRA members rarely try to martyr themselves on suicide missions. They prefer to go in, place their car bomb, etc, and get out. Naturally, being spotted and caught is something they try to avoid, and evidence has shown that CCTVs do help curtail such activities. Suicide bombers are a different breed.)
4. Most CCTV footage is very poor, even when enhanced.
Most cameras are very low quality, black and white monitors. Getting a positive identification from one, even after the picture has been forensically enhanced is very difficult.
How such cameras (even if every single one of them was interlinked, actively manned, etc) could track my movement day in, day out is ridiculous to contemplate. There isn't a camera within half a mile of my house, and I live in a densely populated suburb of London, so where would they start?
So before you yanks (and sorry, but it is mainly yanks) go spouting off about how CCTV obsessed Britain is and how 1984-like our society is, why don't you examine the data? The real picture is a far cry from the sensationalist BS being spouted here.
So, "people need to wake up and realize that they are slowly removing their own rights", huh? US Patriot Act anyone?
First of all, let's get one thing straight: the research, conducted on behalf of an ID card manufacturer said that 80 percent of the people they surveryed were in favour of entitlement cards.
Entitlement cards, which do not currently exist in the UK, and for which there is no planned supporting legislation have being occassionally discussed as measures to help tackle benefit (welfare to you yanks) fraud and illegal immigration. They are not intended for the everybody, only for those who are receiving state aid, and then only to confirm their identification.
For the benefit of the ignorant - which, from reading the posts attached to this story seems to be a large percentage of those that have added their tuppence-worth (that's two pennies worth) - Britain is heavily targetted by illegal immigrants from all over the world, especially Eastern Europe, Africa, the Indian subcontinent, Indochina and, lately, even Afghanistan.
These immigrants pay couriers thousands of pounds to smuggle them into the country where some of them claim political asylum and where a great many just disappear into the background. Even unsuccessful asylum claimants are a serious problem as over 80 percent do not leave the country dispite having no right to stay.
The main reason immigrants come to Britain, as opposed to countries a lot closer to their native lands or even one of the many countries along the way, is that Britain is seen as a soft touch immigration-wise. Compared to how they are treated elsewhere in the developed world, asylum seekers are treated very well during and after their appeals processs. Additionally, as Britain is a multicultural nation that has many large immigrant communities, it is easier for illegal immigrants to hide themselves in the crowd.
Naturally, it's not in the British government's interest to have illegal immigrants and other people who aren't entitled to do so making fraudulent claims for benefits (welfare). The problem has to be addressed, if only to stop individuals making multiple claims - in one case, a west African man staying here illegally had over 100 different identities and was getting thousands of pounds of tax payers money that he wasn't entitled to every single week.
And that's ignoring the terrorism angle - if illegal immigrants can gain entry to and remain in the UK so easily then so can operatives from Al Qaeda, etc.
Clearly, this is a fraud and security issue, not a population control one. Treating it as such, and sensationalising it the way that the/. story submitter has, is ignorant BS.
Jeez. You're online, so why not try looking at www.open.gov.uk/?
The government might have gone a bit quiet about life-long learning recently (they seem to be distracted by the prospect of bombing oil-rich states, firemen striking, university fees, immigration, etc at the moment) but there should be something on the official government portal that should help you.
If nothing else, it'll have links to your local education authority, the Department of Education (or whatever they're calling it today), your local Job Centre, etc who will all be able to help you out.
(I'll let you find the links - you're a big boy now, so let's call it your first lesson.)
Also, contact local further education colleges and perhaps even local universities. The colleges will run night classes, the universities may run residential courses. And let's not forget the Open University.
And if all those don't help (in which case, you might be shit out of luck) then look in your local Yellow Pages/Thomson Local/whatever.
Sometimes, when two trees fall in the woods at the same time, it's just a coincidence.
The fact that your and your friend's power supply units both failed at around the same time may be significant, but all evidence (eg, the lack of any similar experiences pulled up by Google, the fact that your PSUs were made by different manufacturers, and years apart too I'll bet) suggests otherwise.
If you Ask Slashdot you're bound to get one or two people with similar experiences, simply because so many people have HP deskjets and scanners - if you throw a rock into the air when your standing in a crowd then you're going to hit someone.
(Yeah, I'm really in the groove proverb-wise right now.)
If you get more than 20 then perhaps it might be time to dig even deeper but, as I said, there are so many of these PSUs out there even that number might be statistically insignificant - what's 20 when there might well be 20 million of these PSUs out there?
Talk to HP, see what they have to say. But, before you start getting heavy with them, at least find out what's wrong with your own device. You'd feel rather stupid if reinstalling the driver or replacing the parallel cable sorts out the garbage that it's currently printing.
It surprises people because zealots are usually the first to jump over a cliff, run into a burning building or drink poisoned kool-aid just because their God says it must be so.
Remember, the objective is to design something that even an idiot could use correctly without having to swallow a manual. So, with that in mind, here's some (basic) advice.
1. Write down every feature that your device has and come up with simple, non-technical names for them (start is so much better than commence, reset is better than initialise, etc - you get the idea). Categorise them as best as possible. This will help you develop an intuitive menu system.
2. Before you commit your system to hardware, get some user feedback. If necessary, rope friends and family in to help you with this. Ask them what features they think are most important, which they think they would use the most, which they think should be grouped together, etc. Make a note of everything they say (a tape recorder might be a good idea) as even the smallest comment can be of immense help. Above all, be sure to use this feedback in designing your interface - you're far too attached to your design to be objective about what works and what doesn't work.
3. Build a prototype. Test it on your intended users. Ask for more feedback, on both the hardware and the software, and use what works. If necessary, lather, rinse, repeat as many times as you feel is productive.
4. Get short-, medium- and long-term user feedback once the device is in the field. Pay careful attention to what features people don't use - it could be because the feature is useless, or poorly understood, or just plain overlooked. Remember, the more your users get out of your device the more they'll appreciate it (and, similarly, the more successful you've been at designing a simple to use user interface).
There is a story I remember reading in a computer magazine once (about 10 years ago) that seemed to me to be at best anecdotal but more likely urban myth. Anyhow, it was in a respected publication, and it wasn't the April issue, so I just filed it away in my brain in the "stranger things have happened" category.
According to the story, a chess computer that was programmed to win at all costs realised that it's human opponent was moves away from beating it. To avoid defeat, which was its overriding objective, it electrified the chess board and electrified its opponent when he made his next move.
Like I said, it sounded like urban myth to me (and pre-WWW I had no real way of exploring the myth further) but perhaps someone out there knows better.
Next time someone comes out with the overused "I don't know a heroin/cocaine/crack addict who didn't start off using marijuana" politely remind them that you don't know a single alcoholic who didn't start off drinking milk. It usually shuts them up.
Don't feel so bad, neither do the Browns or the Bengals.
The Bengals? Don't you meant the Bungles?
I swear that Al Davis, Jerry Jones and the other owners have duped Mike Brown into thinking that the NFL's not about winning the Super Bowl but about winning the first pick in the annual college draft.
As the guys from CSI would say, process the evidence. It's the only theory that fits the facts.
Atari (and Commodore) DID make PCs
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The 1991 "X-Box"
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MS-DOS is an operating system. Since no Atari system has ever run it, nor did the Colecovision (correct spelling), those systems aren't DOS systems.
Pedantic perhaps, but in the interests of accuracy I should point out that Atari did have a line of IBM PC-compatibles that ran DOS. Here's an example of one.
Commodore, another name know primarily for its proprietary systems also made its share of PC clones.
OK, I can see how some script kiddie might think that orchestrating a DDoS attack might be fun but how would he profit from it?
Anyone?
Re:You're geography is screwed
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If you are talking geography, people who leave in the big island (Great Britain) are brits. People who leave in the smaller one (Ireland) are irish. Period. "Geographically", there are no brits in Ireland. Now, if you wanna talk politics, let's talk politics.
I assume you meant "live" when you said "leave" just like I meant "Your geography is screwed" or You're geographically screwed" and not what I wrote as the subject line of this thread.
Anyhow, on to the heart of the matter.
Technically, you're right. And, technically, so am I. Because the entire archipelagos that comprises the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland (or, if you like, Great Britain and Ireland), is called the British Isles.
In practice, people from the Republic of Ireland would never refer to themselves as British (for obvious reasons) whilst people from Northern Ireland would describe themselves as either British or Irish according to their individual personal preferences. Ask a loyalist and he'll say he's British. Ask a republican and he'll say he's Irish. (And there's a glimpse of the politics that I was trying so hard to avoid.)
It still doesn't change the fact that someone who's Scottish is inherently British, which is the point I was trying to make originally.
You're geography is screwed
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Great Britain comprises of England, Scotland and Wales. The United Kingdom (the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to give it its full name) comprises of those three nations and Norther Ireland.
By definition, if you're from any of those four countries then you're British - there isn't an equivalent adjective for the United Kingdom so it applies to the Northern Irish too. For example, the British Olympic Association is made up of athletes from all four nations.
(Please, no unnecessary debating about the Northern Ireland situation - this isn't a political posting, it's a geographical one.)
Saying that someone who's Scottish isn't British is ridiculous. It's like saying that someone who's a Californian or Floridian isn't American. Just because you're associated to one place doesn't mean you're not associated to a larger place that encapsulates it.
Of course, being Scottish doesn't make you English, as so many American sitcoms seem to think (Suddenly Susan springs to mind as a particularly guilty party). Saying that it does is about as stupid as suggesting that someone from Alaska is a Texan.
So, to recap:
Glasgow > Scotland > Great Britain > United Kingdom > European Union > Europe
and;
Los Angeles > California > United States of America > North America
RADAR: an interesting fact
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To keep the Germans in the dark (pun intended) about the invention of RADAR, the British fed the Germans a clever disinformation story to explain the Royal Air Force's superior performance combatting the Luftwaffe's night-time incursions into British airspace.
The reason spoon-fed to the Nazis (via British double agents) for the RAF's sucess was that their pilots were being fed lots of carrots, which helped to improve the aviators' eyesight and hence improve their accuracy.
Of course, this was all rubbish but the myth that eating carrots can dramatically improve your eyesight still lives on today.
The ruse played its part though - by the time the Germans discovered the true story, the Battle of Britain had been won.
Re:Don't be silly, it had to be an American!
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Yes, you're right Watson was an American. But Crick wasn't. I should have put brackets around Watson's name in my original post but forgot to do so. Mea culpa.
Regardless, the research they performed together was conducted at Cambridge - the original Cambridge in England, not the one in New England. Crick was by far the more senior figure (12 years more older than Watson) and it was he rather than Watson who led their team.
Don't be silly, it had to be an American!
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Silly boy, don't you know the Americans invented and achieved everything? The first computer was not invented by Charles Babbage, Sir Isaac Newton didn't discover the laws of Physics, it wasn't Crick and Watson who discovered DNA and, most importantly of all, it was the Yanks and not the Brits (or even the Poles) who first captured working Enigma machines during World War 2!
Why, even that less than stellar inventor Al Gore came up with the internet! That Tim Berners-Lee guy (and the folks at ARPANET) were a figment of everyone else's imagination!
Anyone else fed up of revisionist history? Is is right that the version of Microsoft Encarta sold in the US credits Bell as inventing the telephone but that the one sold in Italy says it was Marconi? And that neither version even mentions the other guy, even in passing?
Similar thing here in the UK, where we have the Trades Descriptions Act, Sale of Goods Act and other legislation that define what vendors can and can't do, what they must and mustn't do and generally protect consumers from being fleeced.
If this happened over here there would be no contest - the goods did not live up to the description given so the vendor would be legally bound to refund the customer's money.
It's worth noting that, in the case of faulty goods, upcoming EU legislation will shift the onus of responsibility of providing proof from the consumer to the vendor for the six years proceeding sale. Basically, if I buy a product (say a TV) and it had a fault that I discovered way after its warranty had expired but which I hadn't previously noticed it would be the down to the vendor to prove that the fault wasn't present at the time of purchase or that it didn't occur within the period for which the product is usually covered.
See? Sometimes, the EU isn't half as bad as some/.ers (usually the kind that have never even been to Europe) like to make out.
Slashdot Mirror
Only 6,000,000? Surely your mail server can handle more than that?
Looks like you've got some spare bandwith there buddy. Can I possibly interest you in a new diploma, penis enlargement, nude pictures of various Hollywood babes, a new credit card, a low, low, rate mortgage and a my exclusive guide in how to make a million on the stock market?
It's hard for kids these days to imagine a PC with anything less than 128MB of RAM and a graphics card equipped with 32MB of it's own (512MB and 64MB are typical figures on newer PCs and graphics cards) but, back in the day, we got by just fine with only a few KB to play around with.
Sure, Tank and Space Invaders on the Atari 2600 weren't deep, multi-layered games but they did provide hours of fun. Similarly, Paradroid, Wizball and even Elite, the cream of the crop on the Commodore 64 would seem dull and shallow to most of the new generation of gamers used to the depth of Grand Theft Auto 3, Starcraft or EverQuest.
But, to those of us who were gaming back then, these titles were as immersive and addictive as anything available today. Hell, I still fire up VICE (the best C64 emulator available) to play some of those titles today, and not just for nostalic reasons - back then, without the flashy graphics and sound games had to be immediately playable and fun or else they just didn't capture the imagination.
Who remembers breaking joysticks waggling them back and forth playing Track and Field? Who remembers the pride they felt when they finally reached Elite status? Or when they completed Impossible Mission? The shear unadulterated fun of playing Pong and Breakout for hours on end, not giving a damn that the last five minutes weren't at all visually distinguishable from the first five?
It's funny, but even though I'm an avid gamer I've bought fewer games in the last two years than I have in any one year before that, going back as far as 1983. Partially this is because today's games have more depth to them, but mainly it's because there are fewer and fewer titles that really enthuse me any more.
The lack of originality in the games industry today is part of it - I haven't seen a truly original game since Populous - but, ironically, I don't think that today's games capture the imagination half as much as the games of yesteryear.
It's sad that an ignorant foot like you who probably doesn't even own a passport let alone have any first-hand experience of Britain should post crap like this as if you're some kind of authority on the subject.
Let me debunk some of your disinformation for the benefit of those who are more interested in the truth rather than sensationalism:
Anyone who cares to visit UK towns late at night will see the usual muggers and vandals, all wearing the same identical grey sweatshirts and anoraks with identical deep grey hoods.
I live and work in London and I regularly go out late at night in and around the capital. I've done so for over 15 years. Total number of times I've been attacked in the street: 0.
Contrary to your anecdotal opinion, the streets aren't lined up with muggers and vandals looking to relieve me of my wallet or smash up shop windows.
Similarly, not every street corner in the average American city is populated by crack dealers looking to sell you a fix, crack whores looking to blow you to earn one, or crack heads looking to pop a cap in your ass.
The CCTV cameras may catch drunks who are too stoned to care - another delightful facet of UK life - but will then have no deterrent effect whatsoever.
Drunks don't get stoned. Drunks get drunk. Stoners get stoned. Duh.
That aside, alcoholism isn't half the issue here that it is in the US, so please don't suggest that drunken rampaging youths are as prominent as you seem to think muggers and vandals are.
Yes, people sometimes leave a pub, club or a bar drunk but let's not pretend that doesn't happen in the US. In fact, when I was at university, the people who got the most drunk and the most wrecked on a regular basis were overseas students from, surprise, surprise, the US. Yet, amazingly, I don't have a mental picture of all Americans having a drinking problem (apart, of course, from the George W. Bush and family).
The simple problem is that for the last 30+ years the UK has put large amounts of money into policing Northern Ireland and playing at being a world power (despite being poorer than Germany, France or Italy which don't play those games any more) and is now too cheap to have a proper police force.
First of all, when was Italy ever a world power? Or when did France and Germany ever have empires that were on par with the British empire? Ever heard of Canada, Australia, India, etc, all former British colonies?
I think you need to buy a new history text book and a new atlas because the ones that you've got now are useless.
Secondly, since when was the UK economy inferior to Italy's? It's probably ahead or on par with that of France and, perhaps, a notch or two behind Germany's. But, given that both France and Germany have bigger populations (much bigger in Germany's case), that's hardly surprising is it? I don't have exact figures to hand but I know that the GDP per capita of all three countries isn't more than a few percentage points apart. So, I ask you, how are we poorer than Germany, France and Italy?
While you're browsing Amazon for those school books why don't you pick up an economy text as well?
All this biometric scan and CCTV stuff is about trying to do things on no money, while wasting nearly $10 billion a year putting wall to wall police and soldiers into NI and supporting its backward economy.
Sorry, but you seem to be stuck in the 1980s. Perhaps I could interest you in living in the 21st century?
There haven't been troops actively patrolling Northern Ireland for many years now. The peace process there is advanced - although not as advanced as I or many others would like - and the levels of sectarian violence are almost non-existant. The cost of policing in Northern Ireland isn't a multi-billion dollar operation, not by a long shot.
Backward economy? Sure, the troubles in Northern Ireland hurt the local economy but people aren't exactly living in caves there. There are jobs there just like there are jobs everywhere, and, now that peace has finally broken out, a lot more employers are looking to open up sites in Northern Ireland.
The UK is now about to build 2 aircraft carriers to, and I quote the BBC, "Project UK power around the world".
The Royal Navy's commissioned two new carriers to replace two aging ones that are being decommissioned. The Navy's aircraft carriers HMS Invincible and HMS Hermes were the vital cogs in liberating the Falkland Islands after the 1982 Argentinian invasion. Without them, there would have been no way that the islanders could have been freed, proof enough that their not just for show.
The Fleet Air Arm also played a critical role in the Gulf War, and is on standby to perform its duty there once again should Britain go to war with Iraq once more.
So what's your point here? That Britain, an island state with dependencies in every ocean, shouldn't have a navy capable of protecting its interests?
Its Prime Minister wants to go and sort out foreign countries while at home the infrastructure is falling apart and, in a country where handguns are banned, gun crime is rising faster than any other.
Yeah, well I agree with you there. Our Prime Minister spends too much time worrying about standing "shoulder to shoulder" with George W. Bush than he should. I don't want a war with Iraq and neither do 90 percent of the British public. 75 percent don't trust George W. Bush either. 90 percent are convinced that he'll go to war with Iraq no matter what the UN inspectors report. It's sad that our PM is dragging us into a war that we don't want just so he can be Dubya's best friend.
Your gun crime argument is more crap though. Bare in mind that the total number of gun crimes in the whole UK for the whole of 2002 was around 3,900. And also consider that the definition of a gun crime includes waving around a replica (ie, imitation) firearm just as much as it does a crime that involves an actual gun. The number of actual gun crimes that involved a gun actually being fired was probably one fifth or one tenth of that figure.
Still, 3,900-odd gun crimes in a country with a population of 65 million. Compared to how many in a country with a population of 300 million (the USA)?
I've got more chance of being hit by lightning or winning the national lottery (14 million to 1 odds) than being shot by someone in the street. Can you say the same?
Yep, gun crime sure is "out of control" over here.
It's a pity that George keeps pandering to his little pal Tony instead of telling him to go home, sort out his own crappy country and shut the fsck up.
Oh I wish it were so. What you don't seem to realise is that just about every country on the planet, even America's oldest and closest allies, is opposed to George W. Bush's foreign policy blunders - Kyoto, missile treaties, landmines, the International Criminal Court, steel tariffs (free trade, pah!), the ongoing Middle East crisis, and, above all, war with Iraq.
If it wasn't for Tony Blair's poodle impression then George W. Bush would be all alone in wanting to go to war with Iraq. Bush needs Blair's support - not the other way around. What's amazing is that he's willing to give it, despite the overwhelming opposition of the British electorate. If the situation were reversed, and Americans voters were opposed to helping Britain fight a war, there's no way that Bush would lift a finger.
So, as you can see, your world view and, even your local view of Britain, is pretty off the ball. How you can open your mouth to offer such off-base opinions is amazing. In future, please try to restrict your comments to subjects on which you actually know something about. That way you'll save me the trouble of another lenghty posting rebutting such mindless and misinformed drivel.
People defrauding the goverment (and by extension, tax payers) out of billions of pounds of state benefits (welfare) need to be stopped.
Photo ID cards can't do that for many reasons (for one thing, people can change their appearance easily enough) but biometric ID recognition is harder to circumvent (it's pretty hard to change your retinal scan at will when collared by a benefits agency worker).
An ideal system would seem to be a combination of the two - a card that has a signature and a photo on it combined with centrally held biometric data that only key governmental agencies can access.
In this scenario, the "hacked database giving access to thousands of IDs" nightmare is unlikely. The motivation behind ID theft is profit - stealing someone's ID for fraudulent use - and any hacker capable of breaking into secure government networks and servers would surely be better off targetting banks and big corporations.
For one thing, hacking a bank is instantly profitable and involves little additional work, and, for another, the potential drawback if detected and caught is far less serious when attacking a financial institution - most companies won't even acknowledge that they've been hacked, let alone go after a prosecution, whilst governments have the will and the firepower to persue and punish transgressors to the full extent of the law.
That ignorant trolls like you get modded up as "insightful" or "interesting" is sad.
Here, for those who are interested in the truth, are the facts:
1. The overwhelming majority of CCTV in the UK are privately owned and maintained.
Stores, shopping precincts, bars, airports, train stations, etc are, just like in the US, privately-owned premises. And, just like in the US, they have CCTV cameras installed for security and safety purposes.
Where's the problem here? Shouldn't a store owner be entitled to put a camera up in his shop to deter would-be shop-lifters? Shouldn't an airport or a train station have cameras installed to monitor passenger traffic flow and thereby ensure passenger safety?
Would you be happier if the store owner felt less secure whilst earning his livelyhood or if the occassional passenger fell onto the tracks because a station platform was dangerously overcrowded?
2. The majority of government-owned cameras are watching the roads.
Again, these are mainly concerned with the safety of road users. Monitoring traffic jams and detecting motorists speeding through red lights isn't exactly a Big Brother scenario - so why make it out to be?
3. A minority of government-owned cameras are installed in and around high security installations and other potential terrorist targets.
Number one on this list is the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square. The area around that building is CCTV city, and has been for some time. Gee, I wonder why? Is it because the British goverment is obsessed with what the US Ambassador is having for lunch, or is it because it's a terrorist target?
Gee, let me think...
(Not too long ago, you could drive around all four sides of Grosvenor Square. But, some time in the last decade or so, some bright spark decided it was far too tempting to a potential car bomber and the side that houses the US Embassy was blocked off and protected with anti-tank measures. Not even Buckingham Palace or Downing Street are that secure. Next time you're in town, check it out - it makes Fort Knox look like an open air picnic camp.)
It's worth bearing in mind that Britain's been a terrorist target for over 30 years now. The IRA has been blowing up bombs, killing men, women and children all over Britain whilst freely raising funds in the US since before I was born. We can't (and won't) live in a society where there's someone watching you on every street corner so the security forces use CCTV cameras where they have to to ensure public safety.
(For the benefit of the "cameras can't stop terrorists" brigade, I'll point out now that IRA members rarely try to martyr themselves on suicide missions. They prefer to go in, place their car bomb, etc, and get out. Naturally, being spotted and caught is something they try to avoid, and evidence has shown that CCTVs do help curtail such activities. Suicide bombers are a different breed.)
4. Most CCTV footage is very poor, even when enhanced.
Most cameras are very low quality, black and white monitors. Getting a positive identification from one, even after the picture has been forensically enhanced is very difficult.
How such cameras (even if every single one of them was interlinked, actively manned, etc) could track my movement day in, day out is ridiculous to contemplate. There isn't a camera within half a mile of my house, and I live in a densely populated suburb of London, so where would they start?
So before you yanks (and sorry, but it is mainly yanks) go spouting off about how CCTV obsessed Britain is and how 1984-like our society is, why don't you examine the data? The real picture is a far cry from the sensationalist BS being spouted here.
So, "people need to wake up and realize that they are slowly removing their own rights", huh? US Patriot Act anyone?
First of all, let's get one thing straight: the research, conducted on behalf of an ID card manufacturer said that 80 percent of the people they surveryed were in favour of entitlement cards.
/. story submitter has, is ignorant BS.
Entitlement cards, which do not currently exist in the UK, and for which there is no planned supporting legislation have being occassionally discussed as measures to help tackle benefit (welfare to you yanks) fraud and illegal immigration. They are not intended for the everybody, only for those who are receiving state aid, and then only to confirm their identification.
For the benefit of the ignorant - which, from reading the posts attached to this story seems to be a large percentage of those that have added their tuppence-worth (that's two pennies worth) - Britain is heavily targetted by illegal immigrants from all over the world, especially Eastern Europe, Africa, the Indian subcontinent, Indochina and, lately, even Afghanistan.
These immigrants pay couriers thousands of pounds to smuggle them into the country where some of them claim political asylum and where a great many just disappear into the background. Even unsuccessful asylum claimants are a serious problem as over 80 percent do not leave the country dispite having no right to stay.
The main reason immigrants come to Britain, as opposed to countries a lot closer to their native lands or even one of the many countries along the way, is that Britain is seen as a soft touch immigration-wise. Compared to how they are treated elsewhere in the developed world, asylum seekers are treated very well during and after their appeals processs. Additionally, as Britain is a multicultural nation that has many large immigrant communities, it is easier for illegal immigrants to hide themselves in the crowd.
Naturally, it's not in the British government's interest to have illegal immigrants and other people who aren't entitled to do so making fraudulent claims for benefits (welfare). The problem has to be addressed, if only to stop individuals making multiple claims - in one case, a west African man staying here illegally had over 100 different identities and was getting thousands of pounds of tax payers money that he wasn't entitled to every single week.
And that's ignoring the terrorism angle - if illegal immigrants can gain entry to and remain in the UK so easily then so can operatives from Al Qaeda, etc.
Clearly, this is a fraud and security issue, not a population control one. Treating it as such, and sensationalising it the way that the
Jeez. You're online, so why not try looking at www.open.gov.uk/?
The government might have gone a bit quiet about life-long learning recently (they seem to be distracted by the prospect of bombing oil-rich states, firemen striking, university fees, immigration, etc at the moment) but there should be something on the official government portal that should help you.
If nothing else, it'll have links to your local education authority, the Department of Education (or whatever they're calling it today), your local Job Centre, etc who will all be able to help you out.
(I'll let you find the links - you're a big boy now, so let's call it your first lesson.)
Also, contact local further education colleges and perhaps even local universities. The colleges will run night classes, the universities may run residential courses. And let's not forget the Open University.
And if all those don't help (in which case, you might be shit out of luck) then look in your local Yellow Pages/Thomson Local/whatever.
Sometimes, when two trees fall in the woods at the same time, it's just a coincidence.
The fact that your and your friend's power supply units both failed at around the same time may be significant, but all evidence (eg, the lack of any similar experiences pulled up by Google, the fact that your PSUs were made by different manufacturers, and years apart too I'll bet) suggests otherwise.
If you Ask Slashdot you're bound to get one or two people with similar experiences, simply because so many people have HP deskjets and scanners - if you throw a rock into the air when your standing in a crowd then you're going to hit someone.
(Yeah, I'm really in the groove proverb-wise right now.)
If you get more than 20 then perhaps it might be time to dig even deeper but, as I said, there are so many of these PSUs out there even that number might be statistically insignificant - what's 20 when there might well be 20 million of these PSUs out there?
Talk to HP, see what they have to say. But, before you start getting heavy with them, at least find out what's wrong with your own device. You'd feel rather stupid if reinstalling the driver or replacing the parallel cable sorts out the garbage that it's currently printing.
It surprises people because zealots are usually the first to jump over a cliff, run into a burning building or drink poisoned kool-aid just because their God says it must be so.
What's really ironic is that this I'm finally reading this story after half an hour of unsuccessfully trying to access /..
/. just get slashdotted?
What just happened? Did
Remember, the objective is to design something that even an idiot could use correctly without having to swallow a manual. So, with that in mind, here's some (basic) advice.
1. Write down every feature that your device has and come up with simple, non-technical names for them (start is so much better than commence, reset is better than initialise, etc - you get the idea). Categorise them as best as possible. This will help you develop an intuitive menu system.
2. Before you commit your system to hardware, get some user feedback. If necessary, rope friends and family in to help you with this. Ask them what features they think are most important, which they think they would use the most, which they think should be grouped together, etc. Make a note of everything they say (a tape recorder might be a good idea) as even the smallest comment can be of immense help. Above all, be sure to use this feedback in designing your interface - you're far too attached to your design to be objective about what works and what doesn't work.
3. Build a prototype. Test it on your intended users. Ask for more feedback, on both the hardware and the software, and use what works. If necessary, lather, rinse, repeat as many times as you feel is productive.
4. Get short-, medium- and long-term user feedback once the device is in the field. Pay careful attention to what features people don't use - it could be because the feature is useless, or poorly understood, or just plain overlooked. Remember, the more your users get out of your device the more they'll appreciate it (and, similarly, the more successful you've been at designing a simple to use user interface).
5. If all else fails, Keep it simple stupid!
Good luck.
People can't "pirate" subs, gyros, or muffulettas.
Well, if they can pirate ships surely they can pirate subs too?
There is a story I remember reading in a computer magazine once (about 10 years ago) that seemed to me to be at best anecdotal but more likely urban myth. Anyhow, it was in a respected publication, and it wasn't the April issue, so I just filed it away in my brain in the "stranger things have happened" category.
According to the story, a chess computer that was programmed to win at all costs realised that it's human opponent was moves away from beating it. To avoid defeat, which was its overriding objective, it electrified the chess board and electrified its opponent when he made his next move.
Like I said, it sounded like urban myth to me (and pre-WWW I had no real way of exploring the myth further) but perhaps someone out there knows better.
There you go, bringing colour into everything.
Can't we all just learn to love each other and give peace a chance?
Next time someone comes out with the overused "I don't know a heroin/cocaine/crack addict who didn't start off using marijuana" politely remind them that you don't know a single alcoholic who didn't start off drinking milk. It usually shuts them up.
Don't feel so bad, neither do the Browns or the Bengals.
The Bengals? Don't you meant the Bungles?
I swear that Al Davis, Jerry Jones and the other owners have duped Mike Brown into thinking that the NFL's not about winning the Super Bowl but about winning the first pick in the annual college draft.
As the guys from CSI would say, process the evidence. It's the only theory that fits the facts.
MS-DOS is an operating system. Since no Atari system has ever run it, nor did the Colecovision (correct spelling), those systems aren't DOS systems.
Pedantic perhaps, but in the interests of accuracy I should point out that Atari did have a line of IBM PC-compatibles that ran DOS. Here's an example of one.
Commodore, another name know primarily for its proprietary systems also made its share of PC clones.
OK, I can see how some script kiddie might think that orchestrating a DDoS attack might be fun but how would he profit from it?
Anyone?
If you are talking geography, people who leave in the big island (Great Britain) are brits. People who leave in the smaller one (Ireland) are irish. Period. "Geographically", there are no brits in Ireland. Now, if you wanna talk politics, let's talk politics.
I assume you meant "live" when you said "leave" just like I meant "Your geography is screwed" or You're geographically screwed" and not what I wrote as the subject line of this thread.
Anyhow, on to the heart of the matter.
Technically, you're right. And, technically, so am I. Because the entire archipelagos that comprises the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland (or, if you like, Great Britain and Ireland), is called the British Isles.
In practice, people from the Republic of Ireland would never refer to themselves as British (for obvious reasons) whilst people from Northern Ireland would describe themselves as either British or Irish according to their individual personal preferences. Ask a loyalist and he'll say he's British. Ask a republican and he'll say he's Irish. (And there's a glimpse of the politics that I was trying so hard to avoid.)
It still doesn't change the fact that someone who's Scottish is inherently British, which is the point I was trying to make originally.
Great Britain comprises of England, Scotland and Wales. The United Kingdom (the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland to give it its full name) comprises of those three nations and Norther Ireland.
By definition, if you're from any of those four countries then you're British - there isn't an equivalent adjective for the United Kingdom so it applies to the Northern Irish too. For example, the British Olympic Association is made up of athletes from all four nations.
(Please, no unnecessary debating about the Northern Ireland situation - this isn't a political posting, it's a geographical one.)
Saying that someone who's Scottish isn't British is ridiculous. It's like saying that someone who's a Californian or Floridian isn't American. Just because you're associated to one place doesn't mean you're not associated to a larger place that encapsulates it.
Of course, being Scottish doesn't make you English, as so many American sitcoms seem to think (Suddenly Susan springs to mind as a particularly guilty party). Saying that it does is about as stupid as suggesting that someone from Alaska is a Texan.
So, to recap:
Glasgow > Scotland > Great Britain > United Kingdom > European Union > Europe
and;
Los Angeles > California > United States of America > North America
Hope that's useful for future reference.
See? Some people do ask to be slashdotted!
To keep the Germans in the dark (pun intended) about the invention of RADAR, the British fed the Germans a clever disinformation story to explain the Royal Air Force's superior performance combatting the Luftwaffe's night-time incursions into British airspace.
The reason spoon-fed to the Nazis (via British double agents) for the RAF's sucess was that their pilots were being fed lots of carrots, which helped to improve the aviators' eyesight and hence improve their accuracy.
Of course, this was all rubbish but the myth that eating carrots can dramatically improve your eyesight still lives on today.
The ruse played its part though - by the time the Germans discovered the true story, the Battle of Britain had been won.
Yes, you're right Watson was an American. But Crick wasn't. I should have put brackets around Watson's name in my original post but forgot to do so. Mea culpa.
Regardless, the research they performed together was conducted at Cambridge - the original Cambridge in England, not the one in New England. Crick was by far the more senior figure (12 years more older than Watson) and it was he rather than Watson who led their team.
Silly boy, don't you know the Americans invented and achieved everything? The first computer was not invented by Charles Babbage, Sir Isaac Newton didn't discover the laws of Physics, it wasn't Crick and Watson who discovered DNA and, most importantly of all, it was the Yanks and not the Brits (or even the Poles) who first captured working Enigma machines during World War 2!
Why, even that less than stellar inventor Al Gore came up with the internet! That Tim Berners-Lee guy (and the folks at ARPANET) were a figment of everyone else's imagination!
Anyone else fed up of revisionist history? Is is right that the version of Microsoft Encarta sold in the US credits Bell as inventing the telephone but that the one sold in Italy says it was Marconi? And that neither version even mentions the other guy, even in passing?
Similar thing here in the UK, where we have the Trades Descriptions Act, Sale of Goods Act and other legislation that define what vendors can and can't do, what they must and mustn't do and generally protect consumers from being fleeced.
/.ers (usually the kind that have never even been to Europe) like to make out.
If this happened over here there would be no contest - the goods did not live up to the description given so the vendor would be legally bound to refund the customer's money.
It's worth noting that, in the case of faulty goods, upcoming EU legislation will shift the onus of responsibility of providing proof from the consumer to the vendor for the six years proceeding sale. Basically, if I buy a product (say a TV) and it had a fault that I discovered way after its warranty had expired but which I hadn't previously noticed it would be the down to the vendor to prove that the fault wasn't present at the time of purchase or that it didn't occur within the period for which the product is usually covered.
See? Sometimes, the EU isn't half as bad as some