What annoys me is that this seems like selective censorship... If Google were either to stay out of China altogether, or prevent any results being returned for 'banned' topics then it'd not be so bad. But specific results are hidden, which leads to a sort of misinformation - you only see the side of the story that the Chinese government wants Google to show.
I still prefer the Amgia hardware developers method of naming co-processors - use female names so you can talk about them down the pub after work without sounding too nerd-like. Not sure how well discussions about the SPU will go down!
Well said! I work for the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations and I can confirm that more money is donated to charity per head in Scotland than any other region in the UK. Not sure about the rest of the world.
It's the important distinction between being tight and being frugal. Scots tend to be careful with their cash, investing wisely. This doesn't mean we're not generous.
You're probably thinking of Mr 'Unit-of-Energy' himself, James Watt. However, he didn't invent the steam engine. The modern idea comes from the late 1600s and industrialised by Thomas Savery and Thomas Newcomen. However Watt did make them around 75% more efficient with a simple change to existing engines, pretty much kicking-off the industrial revolution. Pretty neat stuff!
But yes, Stirling engines should definitely get more press; I doubt 1 in 50 people here in Scotland know of them and might only guess they hail frae doon the road thanks to their rather Scottish name.
Mr. Schmidt needs to come to terms with the notion that, as a man with some considerable fame within the buisness and Internet communities, the press is going to take some interest in his personal life.
This is no different from how the media treats anyone with even minor celebrity status. In fact CNET simply used information available in the public domain to illustrate its point, far less questionable than the lengths some reporters go to dig up dirt on today's headlining star.
My experience with fluorescent tubes breaking is that they tend to only leave a few large shards. Mind you, I've only had one break on me, when I stood on a £20 brand-new marine aquarium tube barefooted:(
Rip-Off Britain - Possibly $100 a game!
on
Xbox 360 for $300
·
· Score: 1
Yep, and us in rip-off-britain will have it even worse. As most of us know, $1 tends to equal £1 when it comes to anything pricing anything tech related. Effectively bringing the cost of the console to $533 and each game to $105!
They did that magic currency conversion last time with the launch of the Xbox so I expect they'll do it again.
Is there really any need for shuttle launches any more? They could keep a shuttle in orbit close to/docked at the ISS for missions that require the maneuverability in orbit a shuttle can give them - plus use it in the case of emergencies.
Just fire cargo up to the ISS using commercial rockets, and astronauts via Soyux or a to-be-developed NASA alternative. The ISS-based shuttle can then be used for repairs, maneuvering, etc. without the dangers involved in launch and re-entry.
I suppose the question is how long would a shuttle last in orbit, when they're designed for short week or two missions?
Your last chance to own the original Star Wars props? I've heard that one before. How long until they release original Star Wars props, Special Edition?
About £0.60 worth of electricity?
on
19 million Amps
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· Score: 1
Not that I'm for compulsary cards, but the card themselves do not need to contain any sensitive information - all that needs to be machine readable is an ID number (say your National Insurance number.) Biometric information for this unique ID would be stored in the central database and checked against your biometrics when you present the card.
It's a bit like your bank card - they don't store the PIN on the card or your balance, etc.
Mind you, I'd not be surprised if the government screwed up and placed info on the card that doesn't need to be there.
The reason they do this is to simplify the mapping of latitude and longitude to pixel coordinates. In reality 1 second east/west is a different distance on the ground depending on how far from the equator you are (e.g. 360 degrees is zero distance at the poles).
What they've done is picked a reasonable average for this distance over the area they cover (North America and the UK), then projected the map so this distance equals the same number of pixels over the whole map. This way they don't need to resort to trig functions in their Javascript.
I built my own HTPC using a gutted out DVD player as the case. My recommendation to anyone doing this would be to get a DVB card (either DVB-S if you have Satellite, DVB-C if you have cable, or DVB-T for terrestrial broadcasts.) This way you can get the MPEG stream straight into your PC and onto your HDD - no horrible analog capturing and MPEG encoding to mess with! For those with a graphics card or MB with digital video output, you can cut the analog side of things all together.
There's another option on the software side of things if you go this way too, take a look at VDR (http://www.cadsoft.de/vdr/). There are no shortage of plugins, including support for using a remote copy of xine as an output device.
What might be interesting would be generic cell PCI card. Say 8 or more Cell processors which could be used in your PC/Mac for generic applications such as 3D processing, video encoding/decoding, encryption etc.
I'm no lawyer, but I've a feeling here in Scotland the encryption of other people's data without providing them with a means of decrypting it COULD be taken as illegal.
Here in Scotland, preventing someone access to something they own (and you would expect that the photographer owns the data of the photograph) is viewed as theft by the law. It's why car clamping is illegal in Scotland. I'm not sure if there are any cases which provide precedence for this with regards to data, but would be interesting to see Nikon bought to court over this!
I sent an email to the 7 Scottish MEPs on Monday and have got 2 replies so far:
The frist from David Martin (Labour):
Thank you for getting in touch with me about this - Labour MEPs'
position is reflected in the amendments we tabled and voted for in the Parliament's report on the Commission proposal on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions. In short, the position remains:
* No US-style patenting of software.
* Software as such, must not be patented. No patenting of business methods or "general ideas"
* Opensource software must be allowed to flourish and the Commission must ensure that this Directive does not have any adverse effect on opensource software and small software developers.
* Patents and the threat of litigation must not be used as an anti-competitive weapon to squeeze out small companies.
The Member States and European Commission will negotiate with Parliament on our amendments and I hope we can achieve an outcome which will limit and restrict the patentability of computer-implemented inventions.
As you are aware the European Patent Office has already handed down some 40,000 software patents and without an EU directive we could end up drifting towards extending patentability to business methods, algorithms or mathematical methods, as is the case in the US.
We are very anxious not to vote for an introduction of software patents, but to limit patents.
Yours sincerely,
David
Mr. David Martin MEP
The second from Ian Hudghton (SNP):
Thank you for communicating your views on the issue of the EU Directive on Software Patenting.
SNP MEPs, with the full support of our whole political group in the European Parliament, have campaigned long and hard against the proposal since it was tabled for first reading in the previous Parliamentary session.
The EP recently formally called upon the Council of Ministers to scrap the idea, and I very much regret that the Council has decided to ignore our democratic input so far.
Please be assured that this will not be the end of the matter - far from it. I am sure that the Directive will face strong opposition in Parliament during the second reading, debate and vote.
Below is the text of a press release which I issued, following the Council of Ministers' decision, which I hope will be reported in the Scottish media. Please feel free to circulate to your contacts if you wish.
Thank you again for bringing your views to my attention.
Ian Hudghton MEP
Monday 7 March 2005
EU MINISTERS' BLOW TO SMALL SOFTWARE DEVELOPERS SNP European Spokesman Ian Hudghton MEP has criticised European Economics Ministers who today backed controversial new rules on software patents that many fear could have a severely detrimental effect on independent software developers.
There are concern s that the new rules will favour large multinational companies such as Microsoft who have the financial means to exploit the new regime. At present, computer software is subject to copyright legislation in Europe but the new plans would make software patentable.
Speaking from Strasbourg, Ian Hudghton MEP said:
"I've been contacted by a number of constituents who are very concerned about these proposals. I share their concerns and we've been demanding changes to the new rules before they come into force. Today's decision by European ministers is disappointing but at least it means the plans will come back before the European Parliament where they'll face strong opposition.
It's appalling that Ministers chose to favour big multinational companies over small scale businesses who will find it even more difficult to compete if the market is skewed further in favour of the likes of Microsoft. We should be encouraging and supporting the development of high tech creative industries not working against them. These are ill thought out plans that need radical overhaul."
Slashdot Mirror
What annoys me is that this seems like selective censorship... If Google were either to stay out of China altogether, or prevent any results being returned for 'banned' topics then it'd not be so bad. But specific results are hidden, which leads to a sort of misinformation - you only see the side of the story that the Chinese government wants Google to show.
t ml
"Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful"
http://www.google.co.uk/intl/en/corporate/index.h
Well, I'd certainly not call this making the world's information universally accessible!
I still prefer the Amgia hardware developers method of naming co-processors - use female names so you can talk about them down the pub after work without sounding too nerd-like. Not sure how well discussions about the SPU will go down!
Someone has already clocked up an extra 150MHz!
p ?p=1001108#post1001108
Calculating 1m decimal places of Pi now down to 18.093s...
http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.ph
Well said! I work for the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations and I can confirm that more money is donated to charity per head in Scotland than any other region in the UK. Not sure about the rest of the world.
It's the important distinction between being tight and being frugal. Scots tend to be careful with their cash, investing wisely. This doesn't mean we're not generous.
You're probably thinking of Mr 'Unit-of-Energy' himself, James Watt. However, he didn't invent the steam engine. The modern idea comes from the late 1600s and industrialised by Thomas Savery and Thomas Newcomen. However Watt did make them around 75% more efficient with a simple change to existing engines, pretty much kicking-off the industrial revolution. Pretty neat stuff!
But yes, Stirling engines should definitely get more press; I doubt 1 in 50 people here in Scotland know of them and might only guess they hail frae doon the road thanks to their rather Scottish name.
Mr. Schmidt needs to come to terms with the notion that, as a man with some considerable fame within the buisness and Internet communities, the press is going to take some interest in his personal life.
This is no different from how the media treats anyone with even minor celebrity status. In fact CNET simply used information available in the public domain to illustrate its point, far less questionable than the lengths some reporters go to dig up dirt on today's headlining star.
My experience with fluorescent tubes breaking is that they tend to only leave a few large shards. Mind you, I've only had one break on me, when I stood on a £20 brand-new marine aquarium tube barefooted :(
Yep, and us in rip-off-britain will have it even worse. As most of us know, $1 tends to equal £1 when it comes to anything pricing anything tech related. Effectively bringing the cost of the console to $533 and each game to $105!
They did that magic currency conversion last time with the launch of the Xbox so I expect they'll do it again.
Is there really any need for shuttle launches any more? They could keep a shuttle in orbit close to/docked at the ISS for missions that require the maneuverability in orbit a shuttle can give them - plus use it in the case of emergencies.
Just fire cargo up to the ISS using commercial rockets, and astronauts via Soyux or a to-be-developed NASA alternative. The ISS-based shuttle can then be used for repairs, maneuvering, etc. without the dangers involved in launch and re-entry.
I suppose the question is how long would a shuttle last in orbit, when they're designed for short week or two missions?
Your last chance to own the original Star Wars props? I've heard that one before. How long until they release original Star Wars props, Special Edition?
World total combined electricity consumption for the year of 2003 was 14767.74849 billion kWh (http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/ta ble62.xls)
Even if they used 4 times the world consumption over a few millionths of a second that's only about 7 to 8 kWh... Cheapskates!
Not that I'm for compulsary cards, but the card themselves do not need to contain any sensitive information - all that needs to be machine readable is an ID number (say your National Insurance number.) Biometric information for this unique ID would be stored in the central database and checked against your biometrics when you present the card.
It's a bit like your bank card - they don't store the PIN on the card or your balance, etc.
Mind you, I'd not be surprised if the government screwed up and placed info on the card that doesn't need to be there.
The reason they do this is to simplify the mapping of latitude and longitude to pixel coordinates. In reality 1 second east/west is a different distance on the ground depending on how far from the equator you are (e.g. 360 degrees is zero distance at the poles).
What they've done is picked a reasonable average for this distance over the area they cover (North America and the UK), then projected the map so this distance equals the same number of pixels over the whole map. This way they don't need to resort to trig functions in their Javascript.
I built my own HTPC using a gutted out DVD player as the case. My recommendation to anyone doing this would be to get a DVB card (either DVB-S if you have Satellite, DVB-C if you have cable, or DVB-T for terrestrial broadcasts.) This way you can get the MPEG stream straight into your PC and onto your HDD - no horrible analog capturing and MPEG encoding to mess with! For those with a graphics card or MB with digital video output, you can cut the analog side of things all together.
There's another option on the software side of things if you go this way too, take a look at VDR (http://www.cadsoft.de/vdr/). There are no shortage of plugins, including support for using a remote copy of xine as an output device.
More info on Digital TV under linux is available at http://www.linuxtv.org/
What might be interesting would be generic cell PCI card. Say 8 or more Cell processors which could be used in your PC/Mac for generic applications such as 3D processing, video encoding/decoding, encryption etc.
I'm no lawyer, but I've a feeling here in Scotland the encryption of other people's data without providing them with a means of decrypting it COULD be taken as illegal.
Here in Scotland, preventing someone access to something they own (and you would expect that the photographer owns the data of the photograph) is viewed as theft by the law. It's why car clamping is illegal in Scotland. I'm not sure if there are any cases which provide precedence for this with regards to data, but would be interesting to see Nikon bought to court over this!
The frist from David Martin (Labour):
The second from Ian Hudghton (SNP):