It's also old news to those of us in the old world. Sky Digital has had this sort of thing for ages. When watching advertisments on digital you will get a small pop-up which suggests that pressing the red button will take you to more information. This can be anything and everything.
It's also used on British digital television for interactive content associated with television programming. For example, there was a programme on Great Britons and asked the audience to choose who they thought was the greatest. On digital TV you could read more about them, make a choice, even see real time data on how each candidate was doing.
Finally there's some quite nice gimmicky uses for it. The Simpsons on Sky are sponsored by Dominos Pizza and a little mini-ad is played before and after the commercial breaks. During this period you're invited to press the red button which takes you to a page where you can order a pizza from them.
Once you have digital television and a return path the uses are endless.
Even though the Europeans themselves rebate value-added taxes on their exports
It's simple, unless you are a very small company. If you sell stuff in the EC you charge your customer VAT. If you buy stuff in the EC you pay VAT. If you sell stuff outside of the EC you do not charge VAT and if you buy stuff from outside of the EC you do not pay VAT.
So if the US sells stuff to the EC the EC doesn't have to pay VAT and if the EC sells stuff to the US the EC doesn't have charge VAT. It is not a tax break nor a rebate.
I've just re-read your post and see where you're comming from so ignore my other post. Yes, my free radio is due to others paying their TV licence.
Well I'm sorry to have to say that I also pay taxes and National Insurance. I have no children and no permanent disability. I've never been unemployed. So I am subsidising families and the sick. But I don't care it's part of being a member of society.
The cost of radio is small relative to the cost of television. I pay my licence fee which equates to about $15 a month. Given the quality of the TV programming which, on the BBC, is Ad free, it's well worth it. The fact that I get high quality radio as well is a bonus.
I had a big argument with a woman in Tescos when I bought my first DVD player a few years ago. She made me fill in one of those "you're buying TV reception equipment" forms even through it was a DVD *player*. I pointed out that it couldn't receive TV programs so what she was doing was wrong. She said but you need a TV to watch the DVDs. I said I didn't as it had Composite, S-Video and RGB outputs. She said it was company policy. I said it was bollocks. But as I already have a TV licence I filled it in anyway.
Here in the UK we have DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) which, with the appropriate PC card or USB dongle can be recorded and MP3'ed at any time. Compact DAB radios are available to carry where we like. Car DAB radios allow us to hear it on the move.
Advertisments, what advertisments? We have the joys of a comprehensive advert free broadcasting system.
Digital radio is also available via digital terrestrial television, digital satelite and digital cable. The digital PVRs which record direct from the digital broadcasts record it in all it's glory.
My favourite radio station, BBC Radio 4 has most of it's programmes available on line to listen to at any time. In fact most of the BBC radio stations have such facilities. Then my digital satelite feed has countless radio stations available all of which can be recorded on the PVR.
The audio books available on cassette are great for listening to in the car when driving distances. I also MP3 radio plays and play them from my PDA which is then plugged in to the car stereo.
Books tend to be read in the bath or on the train. Skimming through text books in the bath after work is a good time saver. The books read on the train are usually novels.
This nation (UK) has been around a long time. Much of the law here is common law. I.e. law that is not specific but implied. It has come from years of people hammering it out in court and elsewhere. Such British law has come from legal precidence.
The law in Europe has developed differently and is very much legislated. I used to remember all this from my law but I can't remember much any more so I can't remember the name for this type of law. So EC law is also very much legislated and introduced in to British Law via statute.
It's not that we didn't have the right to freedom of expression it's just that it was implied rather than explicitly stated. Interestingly when such legislation goes through the population quite often find they have left rights rather than more because under the old system the law was reactive but now it is proactive. I.e. you could get away with things until they stopped you which tended to be only when you went too far (in the eyes of those in charge) now they can stop you because the line is rigidly defined and there is no leaway.
Totally agree. There is a definite divide here depending upon which side of the pond you are on. We have a WiFi network around the house (three of us) for our laptops, Apples etc and then we have a bluetooth 'network' for the hand held devices. To me where WiFi is wireless ethernet, Bluetooth *is* wireless USB. A short range protocol that's extremely easy to use and just works be it on iBooks, USB dongles, SE T610s, SE T68is, wireless mice, PDAs whatever.
Not only because I work with Indian Outsourcers but because I live and work in the UK and not the US. I have had similar conversations with US friends who are in the IT industry. I do not take home as much as they do but I have free health care, a pension, profit share and share options. I have five weeks vacation a year not including statutory days. Oh yes, and I eat a lot of curry as I live and work in an area of the UK where 25% of the population are Asian.
I correct my previous post. The Constitution isn't written. The process is written. It is written in places like Hansard which is the Government record. The 'constitution' can be changed by acts in parliament.
But I suppose that's no different to an 'amendment' to the US constitution. Not all modern US rights were there at the start. Also others aren't now interpreted as originally intended. For example it was intended to only relate to white males as women definitely weren't men and neither was anyone who wasn't white. The same with the right to bare arms. They didn't mean guns they meant you could defend your homestead. But the US constitution has evolved by convention over time. How is that any different to ours?
I forgot you don't have a written Constitution that prevents such invasions of privacy and self-incrimination
Actually that's an urban myth. The UK does have a written constitution despite what most people think. It's just that no one knows about it. It's about 200 years old now.
Whether or not we have one isn't the issue. Of the two countries and despite survelance and everything else I still believe that the UK is freer and I would feel much safer here than in the US.
The thing is that we've introduced Big Brother aspects slowly and at each stage there has been much debate, public concern and complaint etc. The US is rushing it all in at once with no controls. That's dangerous.
It seems that there is learning required on both sides but as time goes on the relationships will improve. Just Yesterday I finally got my team to use instant messaging and I am already feeling more confident about the success of the project. I have no problem with work being offsite, I work with engineers both in Europe and the US, it was the 'stiltedness' of communication which worried me.
Interesting observations except that as I come from the UK we are in some ways culturally closer than you might think. For example I know enough about cricket to talk about it (In fact a wonderful way of relaxing is to watch a village game laying on the grass with a nice cold beer). But being from the UK may introduce other problems though such as our history of empire. We disgraced ourselves more than once during that period and whether that has an affect I don't know.
I have been working with Indian developers for the last year or so. My observations are these (qualified with the statement that I cannot assume all the Indian subcontractors are like this but only the one's I've worked with).
They are no less or no more clever than any coders from other nationalities I have worked with.
They do not seem imaginative. I now have a policy whereby the design work is carried out in house with the sub-contractors carrying out the development to that design.
Communication isn't good. This may be the language barrier but the friendly communication I have with other developers just doesn't happen and so we cannot work as closely together. Hence...
They don't like iterative development. They want a spec and then do the work returning it as a finished product. It's very difficult to get them to release early code so that reviews and possibly revisions to the design can be carried out. And...
Our contractors are not good at working with other developers. You can give them a project and they will complete it but you can't give them a subsystem. Which isn't very useful as we have a component based development system.
You have to work through the team leader. There is very much a hierachy which is formally adhered to. You can be having a video conference with a team but all will stay quiet except for the team leader. This is possibly a hangover of the cast system?
The code is naeve. I.e. it has the feel of code created by someone who has only just learnt C and has little non educational experience. Also the concept of reusability in code and designs seems alien. Probably because they are used to working on products in their entirity. When provided with components to use in their development it is very very hard to get them not to modify the components themselves.
So basically I'm now using them as code grinders which allows me to get on and architect solutions.
It's all very remeniscent of the early days of computing and submitting programs to be run and then receiving the output a week later to debug. As I said above my experiences may not be common. Also outsourcing hasn't completely killed recruitment at the company and to be honest can be an advantage as we can pick the best candidates who then get exiting work to do rather than testing or writing test suites and the like.
Before/. techno geeks laugh at this guy's dedication to the hobby too loudly, remember that the railroads were the work of America's original high-tech geeks. This is much more impressive than running a Trash 80
Not just American. My first interest when I was very very young was model railways. It's that that taught me electrics, electronics and logic. From there I moved on to electronics as a hobby and then from there to computers starting with the ubiquitous TRaSh-80 and following it up with the Beeb.
Model railways are still big over here in Britain. Like the canals powered the Industrial revolution in the UK in the 19th century, railways powered the 19th century. For example I work in an old woollen mill that is a world heritage site and was built in 1853. It was only built where it was because on one side it has a canal and a river and the otherside is a railway. 150 years on the mill now houses high tech industry but the railway is still there and used by those who work in the building.
I was bought my Mindstorms kit a couple of years ago as a birthday gift. Recently I've been looking to upgrade it but all the add-on kits seem to have disappeared. The Ultimate Accessories Set, the Ultimate Builders Set, the Dark Side Set and the Mars Explorer Set have all vanished.
The Lego shop doesn't list any of them other than the base set. People like Amazon list them but can't say when they will have any stock. They do seem to have vanished from the face of the net. I have managed to get a Mars Explorer set half price which suggests it's end of line. The only place I can get anything is BrickLink and at a price.
When I saw the original/. post regarding Mindstorms I assumed that was the reason. Now they've said they're not stopping Mindstorms why have these other sets disappeared and is there any other way you can you get the extra sensors these sets provides?
SMSing makes it easier to have impromptu get togethers. Ok I'm not a college student but I know the mobile numbers of my friends just so that I can find out where people are going to be and when. I've found it has helped my social life significantly.
A lot of the kits now are "dumb" but there are exceptions. I've been buying technics kits because I'm old enough that my childhood lego predates technics!
But the ESA mission, Mars Express, hasn't failed. The Beagle has failed sort of. I.e. the mission failed but the amount of information and knowledged gained by developing it is well worth the relative peanuts spent.
As for cooperation, I seem to remember that just yesterday there was a thread on a new development in the US (HD Radio) which isn't being used anywhere else because the rest of the world already has had a standard for some years (DAB).
The US is renowned (outside of the US) for going their own way and are only interested if it will benefit them financially. At least we haven't killed anyone yet with our incompetancies.
Slashdot Mirror
I do believe women are capable of it, but it is not part of God's design as laid out in the Bible.
So your god is blatantly sexist rather than a mysogenist!
It's also old news to those of us in the old world. Sky Digital has had this sort of thing for ages. When watching advertisments on digital you will get a small pop-up which suggests that pressing the red button will take you to more information. This can be anything and everything.
It's also used on British digital television for interactive content associated with television programming. For example, there was a programme on Great Britons and asked the audience to choose who they thought was the greatest. On digital TV you could read more about them, make a choice, even see real time data on how each candidate was doing.
Finally there's some quite nice gimmicky uses for it. The Simpsons on Sky are sponsored by Dominos Pizza and a little mini-ad is played before and after the commercial breaks. During this period you're invited to press the red button which takes you to a page where you can order a pizza from them.
Once you have digital television and a return path the uses are endless.
Even though the Europeans themselves rebate value-added taxes on their exports
It's simple, unless you are a very small company. If you sell stuff in the EC you charge your customer VAT. If you buy stuff in the EC you pay VAT. If you sell stuff outside of the EC you do not charge VAT and if you buy stuff from outside of the EC you do not pay VAT.
So if the US sells stuff to the EC the EC doesn't have to pay VAT and if the EC sells stuff to the US the EC doesn't have charge VAT. It is not a tax break nor a rebate.
I've just re-read your post and see where you're comming from so ignore my other post. Yes, my free radio is due to others paying their TV licence.
Well I'm sorry to have to say that I also pay taxes and National Insurance. I have no children and no permanent disability. I've never been unemployed. So I am subsidising families and the sick. But I don't care it's part of being a member of society.
The cost of radio is small relative to the cost of television. I pay my licence fee which equates to about $15 a month. Given the quality of the TV programming which, on the BBC, is Ad free, it's well worth it. The fact that I get high quality radio as well is a bonus.
We're talking about radio here. You're talking about the TV licence. Radio is *free*.
I had a big argument with a woman in Tescos when I bought my first DVD player a few years ago. She made me fill in one of those "you're buying TV reception equipment" forms even through it was a DVD *player*. I pointed out that it couldn't receive TV programs so what she was doing was wrong. She said but you need a TV to watch the DVDs. I said I didn't as it had Composite, S-Video and RGB outputs. She said it was company policy. I said it was bollocks. But as I already have a TV licence I filled it in anyway.
I'm sitting here smiling.
Here in the UK we have DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) which, with the appropriate PC card or USB dongle can be recorded and MP3'ed at any time. Compact DAB radios are available to carry where we like. Car DAB radios allow us to hear it on the move.
Advertisments, what advertisments? We have the joys of a comprehensive advert free broadcasting system.
Digital radio is also available via digital terrestrial television, digital satelite and digital cable. The digital PVRs which record direct from the digital broadcasts record it in all it's glory.
And it's all free!
My favourite radio station, BBC Radio 4 has most of it's programmes available on line to listen to at any time. In fact most of the BBC radio stations have such facilities. Then my digital satelite feed has countless radio stations available all of which can be recorded on the PVR.
The audio books available on cassette are great for listening to in the car when driving distances. I also MP3 radio plays and play them from my PDA which is then plugged in to the car stereo.
Books tend to be read in the bath or on the train. Skimming through text books in the bath after work is a good time saver. The books read on the train are usually novels.
This nation (UK) has been around a long time. Much of the law here is common law. I.e. law that is not specific but implied. It has come from years of people hammering it out in court and elsewhere. Such British law has come from legal precidence.
The law in Europe has developed differently and is very much legislated. I used to remember all this from my law but I can't remember much any more so I can't remember the name for this type of law. So EC law is also very much legislated and introduced in to British Law via statute.
It's not that we didn't have the right to freedom of expression it's just that it was implied rather than explicitly stated. Interestingly when such legislation goes through the population quite often find they have left rights rather than more because under the old system the law was reactive but now it is proactive. I.e. you could get away with things until they stopped you which tended to be only when you went too far (in the eyes of those in charge) now they can stop you because the line is rigidly defined and there is no leaway.
I just ignore it. It just means that a lot of ugly men with small penises read slashdot. But heh, this is geek culture what else do you expect.
id anyone watch the new one last night? I missed the ending. Is Jack really dead? He was my favorite character.
That means you're three weeks behind the UK which is extremely unusual. Heroes (part 1) was shown 3rd February on Sky 1.
Totally agree. There is a definite divide here depending upon which side of the pond you are on. We have a WiFi network around the house (three of us) for our laptops, Apples etc and then we have a bluetooth 'network' for the hand held devices. To me where WiFi is wireless ethernet, Bluetooth *is* wireless USB. A short range protocol that's extremely easy to use and just works be it on iBooks, USB dongles, SE T610s, SE T68is, wireless mice, PDAs whatever.
Not only because I work with Indian Outsourcers but because I live and work in the UK and not the US. I have had similar conversations with US friends who are in the IT industry. I do not take home as much as they do but I have free health care, a pension, profit share and share options. I have five weeks vacation a year not including statutory days. Oh yes, and I eat a lot of curry as I live and work in an area of the UK where 25% of the population are Asian.
I correct my previous post. The Constitution isn't written. The process is written. It is written in places like Hansard which is the Government record. The 'constitution' can be changed by acts in parliament.
But I suppose that's no different to an 'amendment' to the US constitution. Not all modern US rights were there at the start. Also others aren't now interpreted as originally intended. For example it was intended to only relate to white males as women definitely weren't men and neither was anyone who wasn't white. The same with the right to bare arms. They didn't mean guns they meant you could defend your homestead. But the US constitution has evolved by convention over time. How is that any different to ours?
I forgot you don't have a written Constitution that prevents such invasions of privacy and self-incrimination
Actually that's an urban myth. The UK does have a written constitution despite what most people think. It's just that no one knows about it. It's about 200 years old now.
Whether or not we have one isn't the issue. Of the two countries and despite survelance and everything else I still believe that the UK is freer and I would feel much safer here than in the US.
The thing is that we've introduced Big Brother aspects slowly and at each stage there has been much debate, public concern and complaint etc. The US is rushing it all in at once with no controls. That's dangerous.
It seems that there is learning required on both sides but as time goes on the relationships will improve. Just Yesterday I finally got my team to use instant messaging and I am already feeling more confident about the success of the project. I have no problem with work being offsite, I work with engineers both in Europe and the US, it was the 'stiltedness' of communication which worried me.
Interesting observations except that as I come from the UK we are in some ways culturally closer than you might think. For example I know enough about cricket to talk about it (In fact a wonderful way of relaxing is to watch a village game laying on the grass with a nice cold beer). But being from the UK may introduce other problems though such as our history of empire. We disgraced ourselves more than once during that period and whether that has an affect I don't know.
It's all very remeniscent of the early days of computing and submitting programs to be run and then receiving the output a week later to debug. As I said above my experiences may not be common. Also outsourcing hasn't completely killed recruitment at the company and to be honest can be an advantage as we can pick the best candidates who then get exiting work to do rather than testing or writing test suites and the like.
Before /. techno geeks laugh at this guy's dedication to the hobby too loudly, remember that the railroads were the work of America's original high-tech geeks. This is much more impressive than running a Trash 80
Not just American. My first interest when I was very very young was model railways. It's that that taught me electrics, electronics and logic. From there I moved on to electronics as a hobby and then from there to computers starting with the ubiquitous TRaSh-80 and following it up with the Beeb.
Model railways are still big over here in Britain. Like the canals powered the Industrial revolution in the UK in the 19th century, railways powered the 19th century. For example I work in an old woollen mill that is a world heritage site and was built in 1853. It was only built where it was because on one side it has a canal and a river and the otherside is a railway. 150 years on the mill now houses high tech industry but the railway is still there and used by those who work in the building.
I was bought my Mindstorms kit a couple of years ago as a birthday gift. Recently I've been looking to upgrade it but all the add-on kits seem to have disappeared. The Ultimate Accessories Set, the Ultimate Builders Set, the Dark Side Set and the Mars Explorer Set have all vanished.
/. post regarding Mindstorms I assumed that was the reason. Now they've said they're not stopping Mindstorms why have these other sets disappeared and is there any other way you can you get the extra sensors these sets provides?
The Lego shop doesn't list any of them other than the base set. People like Amazon list them but can't say when they will have any stock. They do seem to have vanished from the face of the net. I have managed to get a Mars Explorer set half price which suggests it's end of line. The only place I can get anything is BrickLink and at a price.
When I saw the original
ROFLOL
I'm easily amused.
SMSing makes it easier to have impromptu get togethers. Ok I'm not a college student but I know the mobile numbers of my friends just so that I can find out where people are going to be and when. I've found it has helped my social life significantly.
Interestingly this side of the pond I've never heard anyone say Legos. It's always Lego, like the plural of sheep is sheep, or Lego bricks.
A lot of the kits now are "dumb" but there are exceptions. I've been buying technics kits because I'm old enough that my childhood lego predates technics!
But the ESA mission, Mars Express, hasn't failed. The Beagle has failed sort of. I.e. the mission failed but the amount of information and knowledged gained by developing it is well worth the relative peanuts spent.
As for cooperation, I seem to remember that just yesterday there was a thread on a new development in the US (HD Radio) which isn't being used anywhere else because the rest of the world already has had a standard for some years (DAB).
The US is renowned (outside of the US) for going their own way and are only interested if it will benefit them financially. At least we haven't killed anyone yet with our incompetancies.