So if it's not the network why the fork? Why not improve the current system as part of it's development?
Right now it pulls bits from the framebuffer using the CPU which with PCI is abysmally slow.
Fecking hell these are PCs. I program hardware which has nothing like the power of the modern PC and you're complaining about the speed of PCI or what ever. Yes DMA will always be faster than software 'blitting' but to be honest if you can't get the speed you need using software 'blitting' on a PC you'd better go and learn how to program efficiently first.
Typically most people think X == XFree86 and so show their ignorance. If X is so bad how come SGI/IRIX still uses it for their visualisation systems. A client server architecture does not slow down a windowing system. Badly written software slows down a windowing system. Crippling the existing XFree implementation by coming up with a system that doesn't support any of the useful facilities of X is not an improvement. Hell even XP uses a client/server architecture. And then even inefficient XFree86 performs well enough to display full screen video on one of my monitors whilst I use the other one and that's on my 750Mhz Duron machine.
I'm afraid that Xouvert shows the worst side of Open Source. And that is that anyone can write OpenSource. Where's all the profiling data showing where XFree86 is slow. Why if you're trying to improve on XFree86 are they using a code fork and not starting from scratch? It seems to me this whole project is based on a gut feeling that removing all that socket code will speed it up rather than doing the proper research.
Just how difficult is it to put the source for the kernel module on a server that's not in a country that has software patents? US patents only affect other countries by mutual agreement. Yes M$ may be able to sue those people who sell devices in the US but elsewhere?
They all revolve around having both a short filename and a long filename. Furthermore, as near as I can tell, Microsoft is not trying to get money for the flash media, but the digital cameras the use them. Simply not writing anything other than an 8.3 filename would effectively evade the patent.
I can show them at least one another system that has a short file name and a long file name and that predates 1995. I think they've got a real problem with prior art here. May be they just assume that some will pay purely because of not wanting the legal hassle.
The concept of 0 existed Sumeria but the Babylonians introduced a symbol for zero.
A lot of the Indian astronomy and number theory was inherited from the Greeks (via Alexander's invasion) which in turn came from the Babylonians. Many of the names are similar between both Greek and Indian mathematics.
As for where the character 0 meaning zero. This may have come from the Sumerians but others, as you point out, attribute the Indians with this.
The degree minute thing probably came from the Sumerians who actually used base 60 for their counting systems. It is postulated that they regularly traded with another race and so came up with a base which could be used equally to translate from their 'old' units and those of their fellow traders.
Base 60 makes it easy to divide values by common fractions, a half, a third, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth. Hence 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an degree and 6 x 60 degrees in a circle. The sumerians also gave us positional notation (ie. that the same symbol in different positions in a number means a difference value) which is where our hundreds, tens and units comes from. Some even believe that they invented 0 (in which case it was lost for some thousands of years afterwards) and it's shape comes from drawing () with a stylus in a clay tablet (their write once memory). You can find out more here.
NTSC to HDTV is quite an improvement. PAL and PAL+ to HDTV is less of an improvement. 768x572 vs 800x600 is a negligable gain and 768x572 vs 1280 x 1028 is a gain but not enough to warrant the additional expenditure by the service providers/cable companies and the like. The additional bandwidth required would reduce the number of available channels and no broadcaster will go for that scenario. Then there's obtaining the content which is thin on the ground.
I would rather have good quality digital PAL widescreen broadcasts in number than a few HDTV ones. PAL widescreen projects fine to about 4m x 2m using my cheap projector system.
HDTV is partly marketing and it is being as a carrot, a way of getting people to upgrade to digital in the US. In the UK where there's a lot of digital usage already it's not needed.
It's not happening here in the US, why does Japan think that it's going to happen there?
Because Japan is more advanced technologically with respect to TV!
Because the US went for analogue cable and NTSC to get there first and other nations waited a while and went for newer technology the US is stuck with legacy equipment which causes 'upgrade friction'. Joe public will not see the advantages of upgrading and so be very reluctant to. This is why cable providers are trying to push HDTV as it is an improvement.
The UK is seeing a similar affect with respect to 3G telephones. All we want to do is make calls, text, play the odd game and take silly photos. We find making video calls awkward and inhibitive so where as 2.5G phones sell like hotcakes 3G just isn't selling.
In the UK cable was uncommon until recently and most providers adopted digital early. Much of the public still watches only five channels using an antenna. So when free digital terrestrial (Freeview - digital down an Antenna using COFDM which is respectable quality) appeared combined with low cost receivers (about $70+) its become popular. Interestingly the UK isn't interested in HDTV as we have PAL and most of our TVs have for years supported component video by way of the SCART connector. The gain in quality moving to HDTV isn't sufficient enough to make it worth while when you have 100Hz digital widescreen TVs at a few hundred quid.
Our house has a digital satelite receiver in the main room and a 'Freeview' box in the bedroom. I'm getting my partner's mother one for her Chrimble present. They are now very much an affordable consumer device.
Interestingly when the UK went from 405 line TV to PAL they left the 405 line transmitters running for a while and then one day just turned them off. They bought new TVs for those who complained because it was cheaper than keeping the transmitters running.
It was Kingston Communications. For those who don't know. Back in the days of the government telephone monopoly, The city of Hull, for some reason, ran it's own telephone system. When telecoms was privatised it was spun off to form Kingston Communications. Being independent they always did their own thing and introduced interactive digital television using 2Gb DSL connections.
but because the private owners will rip up the tracks and sell off the land.
Short memories! The reason the railways are in such a sorry state really was the attempt by the Wilson Government to make them comercial in the 1960s. Over half the line was ripped up (2,500 miles!) and over two thirds of the stations closed. One of the biggest losses was the removal of the 'slow lines' which means there's no alternate tracks for slow moving goods or as back up lines. How many times has a train been delayed because of another train on the track. Pre Beeching that would have been easily solved by diverting them on to the second set of lines.
Then you must remember that railways in the UK are nearly two hundred years old. The mis-management and lack of investment didn't start twenty five years ago, it started 75 years ago between the wars and it has gone down hill since then.
I'm 37 years old and for years I only ever knew of local stations with bus shelters on. Many rural station buildings disappears in the period after the war because they were so delapadated it was cheeper to demolish them than repair then. It's only in the last five years that I've known of actual money spent on the railways. Leeds station's complete 80m refurbishment, Temple Mead's (a gorgeous Victorian Edifice started by Brunel) refurbishment, Cardiff's multi-million pound refurbishment, York's (another wonderful Victorian building) refurbishment. My local station had a couple of million built on it so it now has brand new stone built booking office and waiting rooms. The stock on my regular commute was upgrade to brand new electric stock with air-con and comffee seats. From what I remember as a child it's a vast improvement. The problem is that there's no spare capacity and upgrading basically diminishes the service until it improves and there's so much work that needs doing.
The railways system can never be profitable. It should be financed as part of an integrated transport system to cut down on the amount of road traffic. I would happily spend an extra penny on tax if I knew it would go towards the railways.
Have you tried trains in the rest of Europe? Pretty much every country's train service in Europe is better than England's.
The only ones recently I used where from a village outside Potsdam (Potsdam University's out of town campus) and Berlin Zoo. In both directions the train was late. In one just a couple of minutes but the other was twenty minutes late.
I used to commute every day by train. Probably about 99% of the time the train left Leeds on time. Once or twice it was cancelled and occasionally it had been held up on the way in to Leeds from other trains running late. It was reliable enough that I was only ever late due to my bus/train connection going wrong due to a late running bus. The rolling stock is new, comfortable and air-conditioned.
A friend, who was staying here recently and spent a week communiting to a different town was again only held up due, only on the homeward journey and only due to connecting bus problems. The local station she used to start her journey from was rebuilt last year and now has a nice booking office and waiting rooms.
People moan about the railways but it appears it's a southern phenomenon.
anybody for that matter.. but more teens than adults tend to have less driving experience, less understanding of the effects of alochol on them, and a superman complex to boot.
Not my experience of teens in this country (UK). Using your logic surely you should stop teens driving! Or better soon no one should drink and no one should drive and everyone should walk.
Frankly I think it would be better to lower the drinking age and raise the driving age... but the other way around was an easier way to save lives. (I'm not justifying the leagal drinking age, only saying why it is what it is.)
Surely it would be better to educate. Teach people about the evils of drink driving and introduce breathalisation and harsh penalties for offenders. It is possible to change a 'culture' using these methods.
What's wrong with personal responsibiliy? The chief designer at Aston Martin was saying that the current DB is the last that will look that good because of new US regulations to protect car occupants when not wearing seatbelts. Well fuck-em. If you're idiotic enough not to wear one you deserve all you get (and yes I know on rare occasions they are worse but on average you will be safer in an accident if wearing one).
Rather than preventing people doing stupid things. We should educate people and then lock em up if they continue to do it.
Because the vast majority of alcohol related driving injuries and fatalities involve "teens". Many can't handle the responsibility.
Surely that's a self fulfilling prophecy. If you don't let people do something they will want to try it any way and probably do it all wrong. If you let them do it and educate them then you don't have the problem. Do your statistics come from a period when drinking was legal for that age group or illegal?
If you ask any UK base youngsters about drinking and driving you'll find nearly all are very definitely against it and would never do it. My experience is that offenders are usually middle-aged business men. Everyone I know well would either use public transport/taxi if they intended to drink, otherwise it's diets cokes. To be honest many I know don't have a driving licence ro drive at all.
And the collateral damage of innocent civilians including women and children is perfectly valid if it ensures you may get a single terrorist? One man's terrorists are another man's freedom fighters. If a people have no hope what have they got to lose?
Can I suggest the poster reads up on how the British were treated when they were UN peace keepers in Israel/Palestine during the formation of Israel post WW2.
In 1946 flood of European Jews go to P, Jewish Haganah formed to protect Jews in Palestine from Arabs, 1946-1948 Arabs in P attack and kill Jews & try to stop immigration, GB pressured by Arabs to limit it, Jewish Irgun formed in 1946 (goal is to retaliate against Arabs), GB cracks down on Irgun so it blows up King David hotel in July of 1946 (91 British soldiers killed)
At least one of the current ministers in the Isaeli Parliament was involved in that. For the moment I've forgotten his name.
There was also a small war going on London between the Jews and the Arabs during the early 70s as a result of the Israeli ocupation of the Golan Heights and the war with Egypt. They are all as bad as one another.
I don't know about the US but in the UK it's not stealing because theft is criminal law and copyright is civil law. You will not get arrested for copying files but can be sued. You will get arrested for shoplifting a CD.
My employment contract says that everything I write either at work or at home technically belongs to my employer. I can understand that to some extent. While working at an employer you are learning. Can you guarantee that anything you write has not benefitted from knowledge gained while working for you current employer. So such clauses are covering this benefit.
I don't know about the application in question but if there's the possibility it could not have been written by someone other than an employee of Apple even though the author did not use Apple tools or time then Apple does have some rights over it.
It strikes me the guy should have checked his rights first. I discussed this when I joined my company and was told that provided I haven't written anything which is simliar to, or competes with, company products then I should still get approval for open source releases and the like but they would probably be let through on the nod.
I'd prefer a system without the concept of money with people working because of the intellectual challenges, not because of the money, but I don't see a workable implementation of such a system in the near future, the problem is there will always be people too lazy to work if they won't get paid.
You hit the nail on the head. The problem with your Star Trek ideal is that the human species isn't particularly nice. We're lazy, vindictive, greedy, argumentative, teratorial etc etc.
About thirty years ago comprehensive education was introduced in to the country. Before then there were graded schools so that you went to a school (11 - 16 years old) dependent upon how you did in an exam taken in primary/grade school. In comprehensive education the idea was that you were only graded in your subjects and everyone went to the same school. The idea was that the clever and hardworking students would pull up those other. In reality the reverse happened and generally students were dragged down to the lower common denominator. Even they guy who invented the system admits it doesn't work. The problem was that the assumption was that everyone would want to do well and work, the reality is that everyone is lazy and wants as much as they can for as little as they can get away with.
I'm not sure about this. The thing about the radio plays comming first was that the strange sound affects, tunes and dialogue forced you to imaging just how unbelievably weird everything was with not much description by the characters. The early books were an extrapolation of this. Now with the later books we've all read the books first and so the 'scenery' has been described to us and our imaginations no longer need to work.
As they say the pictures are *always* better on radio.
I listen to radio everyday. In the morning I listen to the Today programme whilst driving in to work. In the evening on the way home from work I'll listen to PM or the world at six. I look forward to the The Now Show or Just a minute. Then quite often I listen to BBC 7 which is a sort of Radio 4 Gold.
As for TV, I must get my dose of Dr Who, CSI and SG-1.
Good point! The difference with Yule is that Yule is midwinter's day where as x-myth is the 25 December i.e. a date. Changing a calendar would not change the winter's equinox.
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So if it's not the network why the fork? Why not improve the current system as part of it's development?
Right now it pulls bits from the framebuffer using the CPU which with PCI is abysmally slow.
Fecking hell these are PCs. I program hardware which has nothing like the power of the modern PC and you're complaining about the speed of PCI or what ever. Yes DMA will always be faster than software 'blitting' but to be honest if you can't get the speed you need using software 'blitting' on a PC you'd better go and learn how to program efficiently first.
Typically most people think X == XFree86 and so show their ignorance. If X is so bad how come SGI/IRIX still uses it for their visualisation systems. A client server architecture does not slow down a windowing system. Badly written software slows down a windowing system. Crippling the existing XFree implementation by coming up with a system that doesn't support any of the useful facilities of X is not an improvement. Hell even XP uses a client/server architecture. And then even inefficient XFree86 performs well enough to display full screen video on one of my monitors whilst I use the other one and that's on my 750Mhz Duron machine.
I'm afraid that Xouvert shows the worst side of Open Source. And that is that anyone can write OpenSource. Where's all the profiling data showing where XFree86 is slow. Why if you're trying to improve on XFree86 are they using a code fork and not starting from scratch? It seems to me this whole project is based on a gut feeling that removing all that socket code will speed it up rather than doing the proper research.
Just how difficult is it to put the source for the kernel module on a server that's not in a country that has software patents? US patents only affect other countries by mutual agreement. Yes M$ may be able to sue those people who sell devices in the US but elsewhere?
They all revolve around having both a short filename and a long filename. Furthermore, as near as I can tell, Microsoft is not trying to get money for the flash media, but the digital cameras the use them. Simply not writing anything other than an 8.3 filename would effectively evade the patent.
I can show them at least one another system that has a short file name and a long file name and that predates 1995. I think they've got a real problem with prior art here. May be they just assume that some will pay purely because of not wanting the legal hassle.
The concept of 0 existed Sumeria but the Babylonians introduced a symbol for zero.
A lot of the Indian astronomy and number theory was inherited from the Greeks (via Alexander's invasion) which in turn came from the Babylonians. Many of the names are similar between both Greek and Indian mathematics.
As for where the character 0 meaning zero. This may have come from the Sumerians but others, as you point out, attribute the Indians with this.
The degree minute thing probably came from the Sumerians who actually used base 60 for their counting systems. It is postulated that they regularly traded with another race and so came up with a base which could be used equally to translate from their 'old' units and those of their fellow traders.
Base 60 makes it easy to divide values by common fractions, a half, a third, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth. Hence 60 seconds in a minute, 60 minutes in an degree and 6 x 60 degrees in a circle. The sumerians also gave us positional notation (ie. that the same symbol in different positions in a number means a difference value) which is where our hundreds, tens and units comes from. Some even believe that they invented 0 (in which case it was lost for some thousands of years afterwards) and it's shape comes from drawing () with a stylus in a clay tablet (their write once memory). You can find out more here.
Totally off topic but never mind.
Of course, 720p is 1280x720 and 1080i is 1920x1080. Not sure where you're getting 800x600 or 1280x1024
Those are both 16:9 formats. Although uncommon the 4:3 ones (including computer resolutions) are usually available in the hardware.
It's all to do with relative gains.
NTSC to HDTV is quite an improvement. PAL and PAL+ to HDTV is less of an improvement. 768x572 vs 800x600 is a negligable gain and 768x572 vs 1280 x 1028 is a gain but not enough to warrant the additional expenditure by the service providers/cable companies and the like. The additional bandwidth required would reduce the number of available channels and no broadcaster will go for that scenario. Then there's obtaining the content which is thin on the ground.
I would rather have good quality digital PAL widescreen broadcasts in number than a few HDTV ones. PAL widescreen projects fine to about 4m x 2m using my cheap projector system.
HDTV is partly marketing and it is being as a carrot, a way of getting people to upgrade to digital in the US. In the UK where there's a lot of digital usage already it's not needed.
It's not happening here in the US, why does Japan think that it's going to happen there?
Because Japan is more advanced technologically with respect to TV!
Because the US went for analogue cable and NTSC to get there first and other nations waited a while and went for newer technology the US is stuck with legacy equipment which causes 'upgrade friction'. Joe public will not see the advantages of upgrading and so be very reluctant to. This is why cable providers are trying to push HDTV as it is an improvement.
The UK is seeing a similar affect with respect to 3G telephones. All we want to do is make calls, text, play the odd game and take silly photos. We find making video calls awkward and inhibitive so where as 2.5G phones sell like hotcakes 3G just isn't selling.
In the UK cable was uncommon until recently and most providers adopted digital early. Much of the public still watches only five channels using an antenna. So when free digital terrestrial (Freeview - digital down an Antenna using COFDM which is respectable quality) appeared combined with low cost receivers (about $70+) its become popular. Interestingly the UK isn't interested in HDTV as we have PAL and most of our TVs have for years supported component video by way of the SCART connector. The gain in quality moving to HDTV isn't sufficient enough to make it worth while when you have 100Hz digital widescreen TVs at a few hundred quid.
Our house has a digital satelite receiver in the main room and a 'Freeview' box in the bedroom. I'm getting my partner's mother one for her Chrimble present. They are now very much an affordable consumer device.
Interestingly when the UK went from 405 line TV to PAL they left the 405 line transmitters running for a while and then one day just turned them off. They bought new TVs for those who complained because it was cheaper than keeping the transmitters running.
It was Kingston Communications. For those who don't know. Back in the days of the government telephone monopoly, The city of Hull, for some reason, ran it's own telephone system. When telecoms was privatised it was spun off to form Kingston Communications. Being independent they always did their own thing and introduced interactive digital television using 2Gb DSL connections.
but because the private owners will rip up the tracks and sell off the land.
Short memories! The reason the railways are in such a sorry state really was the attempt by the Wilson Government to make them comercial in the 1960s. Over half the line was ripped up (2,500 miles!) and over two thirds of the stations closed. One of the biggest losses was the removal of the 'slow lines' which means there's no alternate tracks for slow moving goods or as back up lines. How many times has a train been delayed because of another train on the track. Pre Beeching that would have been easily solved by diverting them on to the second set of lines.
Then you must remember that railways in the UK are nearly two hundred years old. The mis-management and lack of investment didn't start twenty five years ago, it started 75 years ago between the wars and it has gone down hill since then.
I'm 37 years old and for years I only ever knew of local stations with bus shelters on. Many rural station buildings disappears in the period after the war because they were so delapadated it was cheeper to demolish them than repair then. It's only in the last five years that I've known of actual money spent on the railways. Leeds station's complete 80m refurbishment, Temple Mead's (a gorgeous Victorian Edifice started by Brunel) refurbishment, Cardiff's multi-million pound refurbishment, York's (another wonderful Victorian building) refurbishment. My local station had a couple of million built on it so it now has brand new stone built booking office and waiting rooms. The stock on my regular commute was upgrade to brand new electric stock with air-con and comffee seats. From what I remember as a child it's a vast improvement. The problem is that there's no spare capacity and upgrading basically diminishes the service until it improves and there's so much work that needs doing.
The railways system can never be profitable. It should be financed as part of an integrated transport system to cut down on the amount of road traffic. I would happily spend an extra penny on tax if I knew it would go towards the railways.
Have you tried trains in the rest of Europe? Pretty much every country's train service in Europe is better than England's.
The only ones recently I used where from a village outside Potsdam (Potsdam University's out of town campus) and Berlin Zoo. In both directions the train was late. In one just a couple of minutes but the other was twenty minutes late.
I used to commute every day by train. Probably about 99% of the time the train left Leeds on time. Once or twice it was cancelled and occasionally it had been held up on the way in to Leeds from other trains running late. It was reliable enough that I was only ever late due to my bus/train connection going wrong due to a late running bus. The rolling stock is new, comfortable and air-conditioned.
A friend, who was staying here recently and spent a week communiting to a different town was again only held up due, only on the homeward journey and only due to connecting bus problems. The local station she used to start her journey from was rebuilt last year and now has a nice booking office and waiting rooms.
People moan about the railways but it appears it's a southern phenomenon.
anybody for that matter.. but more teens than adults tend to have less driving experience, less understanding of the effects of alochol on them, and a superman complex to boot.
Not my experience of teens in this country (UK). Using your logic surely you should stop teens driving! Or better soon no one should drink and no one should drive and everyone should walk.
Frankly I think it would be better to lower the drinking age and raise the driving age... but the other way around was an easier way to save lives. (I'm not justifying the leagal drinking age, only saying why it is what it is.)
Surely it would be better to educate. Teach people about the evils of drink driving and introduce breathalisation and harsh penalties for offenders. It is possible to change a 'culture' using these methods.
What's wrong with personal responsibiliy? The chief designer at Aston Martin was saying that the current DB is the last that will look that good because of new US regulations to protect car occupants when not wearing seatbelts. Well fuck-em. If you're idiotic enough not to wear one you deserve all you get (and yes I know on rare occasions they are worse but on average you will be safer in an accident if wearing one).
Rather than preventing people doing stupid things. We should educate people and then lock em up if they continue to do it.
Because the vast majority of alcohol related driving injuries and fatalities involve "teens". Many can't handle the responsibility.
Surely that's a self fulfilling prophecy. If you don't let people do something they will want to try it any way and probably do it all wrong. If you let them do it and educate them then you don't have the problem. Do your statistics come from a period when drinking was legal for that age group or illegal?
If you ask any UK base youngsters about drinking and driving you'll find nearly all are very definitely against it and would never do it. My experience is that offenders are usually middle-aged business men. Everyone I know well would either use public transport/taxi if they intended to drink, otherwise it's diets cokes. To be honest many I know don't have a driving licence ro drive at all.
I'm imaging that you're fourteen years old, spotty, have never had a girlfriend in your life and have a very small penis.
And the collateral damage of innocent civilians including women and children is perfectly valid if it ensures you may get a single terrorist? One man's terrorists are another man's freedom fighters. If a people have no hope what have they got to lose?
Can I suggest the poster reads up on how the British were treated when they were UN peace keepers in Israel/Palestine during the formation of Israel post WW2.
In 1946 flood of European Jews go to P, Jewish Haganah formed to protect Jews in Palestine from Arabs, 1946-1948 Arabs in P attack and kill Jews & try to stop immigration, GB pressured by Arabs to limit it, Jewish Irgun formed in 1946 (goal is to retaliate against Arabs), GB cracks down on Irgun so it blows up King David hotel in July of 1946 (91 British soldiers killed)
At least one of the current ministers in the Isaeli Parliament was involved in that. For the moment I've forgotten his name.
There was also a small war going on London between the Jews and the Arabs during the early 70s as a result of the Israeli ocupation of the Golan Heights and the war with Egypt. They are all as bad as one another.
I don't know about the US but in the UK it's not stealing because theft is criminal law and copyright is civil law. You will not get arrested for copying files but can be sued. You will get arrested for shoplifting a CD.
My employment contract says that everything I write either at work or at home technically belongs to my employer. I can understand that to some extent. While working at an employer you are learning. Can you guarantee that anything you write has not benefitted from knowledge gained while working for you current employer. So such clauses are covering this benefit.
I don't know about the application in question but if there's the possibility it could not have been written by someone other than an employee of Apple even though the author did not use Apple tools or time then Apple does have some rights over it.
It strikes me the guy should have checked his rights first. I discussed this when I joined my company and was told that provided I haven't written anything which is simliar to, or competes with, company products then I should still get approval for open source releases and the like but they would probably be let through on the nod.
I'd prefer a system without the concept of money with people working because of the intellectual challenges, not because of the money, but I don't see a workable implementation of such a system in the near future, the problem is there will always be people too lazy to work if they won't get paid.
You hit the nail on the head. The problem with your Star Trek ideal is that the human species isn't particularly nice. We're lazy, vindictive, greedy, argumentative, teratorial etc etc.
About thirty years ago comprehensive education was introduced in to the country. Before then there were graded schools so that you went to a school (11 - 16 years old) dependent upon how you did in an exam taken in primary/grade school. In comprehensive education the idea was that you were only graded in your subjects and everyone went to the same school. The idea was that the clever and hardworking students would pull up those other. In reality the reverse happened and generally students were dragged down to the lower common denominator. Even they guy who invented the system admits it doesn't work. The problem was that the assumption was that everyone would want to do well and work, the reality is that everyone is lazy and wants as much as they can for as little as they can get away with.
I'm not sure about this. The thing about the radio plays comming first was that the strange sound affects, tunes and dialogue forced you to imaging just how unbelievably weird everything was with not much description by the characters. The early books were an extrapolation of this. Now with the later books we've all read the books first and so the 'scenery' has been described to us and our imaginations no longer need to work.
As they say the pictures are *always* better on radio.
I listen to radio everyday. In the morning I listen to the Today programme whilst driving in to work. In the evening on the way home from work I'll listen to PM or the world at six. I look forward to the The Now Show or Just a minute. Then quite often I listen to BBC 7 which is a sort of Radio 4 Gold.
As for TV, I must get my dose of Dr Who, CSI and SG-1.
Good point! The difference with Yule is that Yule is midwinter's day where as x-myth is the 25 December i.e. a date. Changing a calendar would not change the winter's equinox.
Bright blessings...