Borders and unions everywhere? Maybe in the US... but the EU has only one border when it comes to importing goods from abroad. Once the stuff has entered the EU the only charges should be handling/shipping.
There is no import duty on cellular telephones from the USA as you can see here in the TARIC database.
So that UPS sum IS a ripoff: the EU adds between $60 and $99, the rest goes into the coffers of UPS. How much does it really cost to ship a 500g package? Shipped via USPS the bill would be no more than $10.30 (First Class International Mail Package, value < $400), double that if you want to send it as registered mail. An added advantage is that a) USPS is more reliable than UPS since b) they don't play football with their packages and c) those packages generally get delivered to the door or the nearest post office.
I've seen SSH probes on my one-man-and-a-dog site for aeons. I don't think there's anything out of the ordinary, the scum has been trying (and failing) to get in for as long as I've had something listening on the 'net - and that is a long time. There's also nothing new in them trying to root FLOSS-sites as those sites - with their fixed IP addresses, good uptime, high reliability and abundance of crappy PHP-scripts to open the doors - make for good C&C hosts for their flock.
So all I read from this flog is that a grumpy BSD user should probably check his logs more often. This is nothing new.
That's just like a design I made for charging supercapacitors off wind power: a gear-less wind-driven generator with a large diameter radial coil pack. When the capacitor charge is low (and therefore the voltage is low as well) the coils in one phase are connected in parallel to provide a high-current, low voltage charge. When the capacitor voltage starts to rise above a threshold the some coils are switched from parallel to series, raising the voltage (but lowering the amperage). The more the capacitors get charged, the more coils get switched from parallel to series until either the preset maximum voltage is reached (meaning the capacitors have reached full charge) or all coils (in a phase) are connected in series.
The same trick can work for giving a low start speed wind generator for conventional accumulators but in that case you might want take some coils out of the circuit to raise the speed above the charging threshold. As soon as the wind picks up those coils can be added back in the mix.
The summary is probably correct, although possibly by accident. There are two types of prison sentences in the US: those which can be served simultaneously ("concurrent sentences") and those which have to be served consecutively ("consecutive sentences"). His sentences probably fall in the former category so he would end up with a maximum stay of 5 years, no matter how on how many counts he has been convicted.
Horseshit. Adaptive optics depend on seeing a guide star created by a laser, something you can't do with a satellite. There's also a technique involving taking multiple images and analyzing them - you can't do that from a satellite either as it moves too quickly.
Not entirely true. Adaptive optics depend on seeing a small, bright object of a known (round) shape. This object can be a 'real' guide star if one happens to be available within the field of view of the telescope. If there is no such star the object can be created using a laser.
This could theoretically also be used in 'reverse': if there is a small, bright object of a known shape in the field of view of the telescope it could be used to model the atmospheric distortion and correct for it using adaptive objects. The world is littered with small, bright objects of known shape. Using a laser would somewhat defeat the aspect of secrecy unless that laser used a bandwidth invisible to the naked eye (in which case it could still be detected using sensors).
The real question is why anyone would bother using adaptive optics in a spy satellite. If you want that kind of resolution a drone aircraft is much cheaper, more flexible and less prone to weather-related blackouts...
That is a pretty silly reason to refrain from using an application. If this program fits your class but you are (easily...) offended by the name, just change it. Or, better still, get over it. A name is a name, nothing more. What is it that you are afraid of? Lawsuits? Ridicule?
No no no, please don't use Wine to *port* applications to non-Windows platforms. That only serves to perpetuate the uglyness that is Win32, brings Windows-idiosyncrasies to those platforms and leads to stagnation in user interface development as Microsoft gets to dictate how the UI on other platforms should act (and in some cases even look, even though that can be amended with Wine's skinning support).
Use wine to run Windows apps until they can be phased out, sure. But please write or port apps to a more sane API!
Sure I could, but Chrome is not just Webkit. It is Webkit plus whatever Google did to it, with a different backend (skia) and a different javascript runtime. A browser is more than just the rendering engine...
I have the Windows version of Chrome installed in my.wine directory and have dabbled a bit with it to see if some websites I built render OK on it. Chrome under wine runs, albeit somewhat haphazardly - it crashes quite often and has abysmal font rendering (a Wine problem, really). For fun I just installed the Crossover version of Chromium and tried it. The experience between these two is very similar: it looks the same (except for the Google-branded coloring of the Windows-version vs. the unbranded coloring of the Crossover version), has the same font rendering problems, crashes frequently. This is of course to be expected but it raises the question of the value of a winelib 'port' vs. running the Windows binary using the wine runtime. I prefer the latter, as that does not give anyone the illusion that the winelib port should be seen as a viable 'native' port for Linux and Mac (I guess, but for lack of a Mac (and the lack of desire to get one) I can not state this with any type of authority). Wine can help in getting rid of Windows, but winelib does not help in getting rid of Windows-isms. Code ported with winelib still feels alien, and acts in ways which do not fit in. Linux (and Mac) are in many ways better than Windows, but not by being 'a better Windows'. In many cases they are better because they are not like Windows at all.
Hard links can not cross filesystem borders. This makes hard links unusable for common linking tasks on the desktop. Soft links can cross filesystem borders but they suffer the same fate as Windows 'shortcuts' when the target file is moved: the link goes dead. This does not happen with OS/2's shadow copies. One of the biggest problem with these is that they only work within the Workplace Shell (from which they derive): try to use them from the command line and you'll find they simply do not exist.
No need to fire up the BP6 as it has been running more or less non-stop since I bought it in 1999. First as a workstation, later - and still - as a server. In tandem with a Webplayer it serves all our needs. Eventually I will replace it with something smaller and less power-hungry but for now it seems content serving our net from underneath the stairs...
So the Democratic Convention will not be supported by Linux users. After all it's them who needs support more than Linux users do... They can get by fine without seeing the politico's strut their stuff, there are other parties to vote for after all... and in the end it won't make a difference anyway... Republicrats or Demolicans...
With regard to this no-fly list one of the more effective ways of fighting back is to refrain from flying whenever possible. Of course you should not forget to let the airlines know that you would have flown if it were not for the fact that you resent being treated like a bovine crime suspect. It is not like the experience of air transport is a favorable one in the first place so not flying when there are alternatives is not really a sacrifice...
I'd say there are many better options to run an extention to your brain on than a proprietary, chained and DRM-encumbered device with a remote kill switch under control of a for-profit organisation...
...there would be some business for an enterprising American to act as a proxy buyer for Europeans who are tired of being overcharged for consumer electronics. Even with shipping and import duties it is usually much less expensive to buy stuff in the US than over here in Europe, but more and more US retailers refuse to do business 'overseas'. The same goes for many sellers on auction-sites. Which I find particularly strange as it is not that hard to use an escrow-service to make sure both parties keep to the deal.
There are companies which provide something like this service but they charge so much that it negates the advantage of buying in the US...
I was scheduled to fly from Vancouver to Amsterdam on the 12th of september 2001. Needless to say I did not leave Vancouver for a week or so. Before that I visited the US quite regularly, on average 2-3 times per year. After that I have visited the US only once - to attend the 2003 IETF meeting in SF. What can I say? I just don't feel very welcome anymore. And as the world is a large place with many other locations to visit I just go elsewhere. Strangely enough I have not even considered going to the US this year, even though the low dollar would make this quite affordable. It just does not feel like it would be a pleasant experience.
I sincerely hope this paranoia will eventually pass so that the US will get the chance to show its good side(s) again.
USsians, make it happen! Get those terrorists out from between your ears and return to those ideas which made you a great country!
(says I while thinking about how to encrypt all communications so my Swedish government will not intercept everything...)
SMS has been and will be milked until the cow is not just dry but parched. The difference between actual cost and price of SMS is ludicrous. And as that actual price only goes down, why to they raise the price to the customer (I know, because they can...)?
Most modern phones can do GPRS or better... which, even though still overpriced, is quite a bit more affordable per bit than SMS. IM clients are available for many phones. Cost per message is radically lower, messages can be longer... What is missing? What would need to be added/removed to turn an IM client into a substitute for SMS so we can finally put that tired old cow to pasture?
- it needs to start when the phone is turned on
- it would be nice if the addressing scheme was compatible with phone numbers
- it would need to keep open a data connection...
-...without incurring onerous fees...
-...or draining the battery...
Many people separate their email provider from their internet access provider, the same should be doable with mobile communications. It will be hard to make it as efficient as the provider can but that can not be helped. It is imperative to build something over which the provider has no power - other than the usual contract clauses or IP blocking antics. Those can be ignored, circumvented by using another provider or fought in court if needs be.
As to the food thing the solution is simple: bring your own. Just stuff some sandwiches in your pack/case/whatever and eat those instead of the swill those fast fodder companies sell. You can eat what you want, when and where you want it. Drink tea instead of sugar-water-in-a-can. It is cheaper too...
All the more reason for us Europeans to move away from commercial software to free software. Unfortunately for the payware-peddlers once a company has moved to free software it will be hard to get them to accept their ransom notes ever again - unless the free software turns out to be a dud of course... but that has yet to happen in my personal experience. So, from Adobe to whatever company starts with a Z, maybe you should think twice before pricing yourself out of the mark
On Mars, on the other hand, carbon dioxide is most of the atmosphere - no need for mining equipment to bake O atoms out of rock, just an air filter to pull them in CO2 molecules out of the sky. We've already tested the sort of compact equipment that would let even a small mission turn that into carbon monoxide and oxygen. You can burn those together directly, or if you want higher performance you can bring your own H2 (which is only a small fraction of your total fuel+oxidizer needs by weight) and burn it directly against local oxygen or bulk it up into methane first using local carbon.
Or, to make it even easier, use the CO2 from the atmosphere to feed algae, use the oxygen released by the algae together with the algae themselves to create fuel. You'd need something to keep the whole thing from freezing but that should be solvable using solar collectors. You'd need water but that seems to be present in quantity on Mars. As long as the sun shines it should be possible to keep up production. Yes, you'd need some form of containment to keep those algea from infecting the 'pristine' Martian soil as long as we don't know whether Mars ever harboured life. Once that question has been answered... and it turns out to be negative... by all means let those algae go right ahead and 'colonise' the planet (if they can find somewhere to grow that is. Maybe lichen would be better for that purpose...)
OK, we now know what you lost when going to Vista: about 1 GB of memory, 30 seconds when waking up from sleep, some patience to click those 'Are You Really Sure That You Want...' buttons...
Now, for general interest and in the name of sanity please tell us what you *gained* from paying your tithe to Microsoft to step on the bandwagon called Vista. Is that gain worth the loss? Does the future look better now that you use Vista? Or is it just that Microsoft's decision to retire XP leaves you - in your opinion - with no other choice?
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Borders and unions everywhere? Maybe in the US... but the EU has only one border when it comes to importing goods from abroad. Once the stuff has entered the EU the only charges should be handling/shipping.
There is no import duty on cellular telephones from the USA as you can see here in the TARIC database.
VAT in the EU varies between 15% (Luxembourg) and 25% (Sweden and Denmark) as can be seen in "VAT Rates Applied in the Member States of the European Community" (PDF).
So that UPS sum IS a ripoff: the EU adds between $60 and $99, the rest goes into the coffers of UPS. How much does it really cost to ship a 500g package? Shipped via USPS the bill would be no more than $10.30 (First Class International Mail Package, value < $400), double that if you want to send it as registered mail. An added advantage is that a) USPS is more reliable than UPS since b) they don't play football with their packages and c) those packages generally get delivered to the door or the nearest post office.
I've seen SSH probes on my one-man-and-a-dog site for aeons. I don't think there's anything out of the ordinary, the scum has been trying (and failing) to get in for as long as I've had something listening on the 'net - and that is a long time. There's also nothing new in them trying to root FLOSS-sites as those sites - with their fixed IP addresses, good uptime, high reliability and abundance of crappy PHP-scripts to open the doors - make for good C&C hosts for their flock.
So all I read from this flog is that a grumpy BSD user should probably check his logs more often. This is nothing new.
That's just like a design I made for charging supercapacitors off wind power: a gear-less wind-driven generator with a large diameter radial coil pack. When the capacitor charge is low (and therefore the voltage is low as well) the coils in one phase are connected in parallel to provide a high-current, low voltage charge. When the capacitor voltage starts to rise above a threshold the some coils are switched from parallel to series, raising the voltage (but lowering the amperage). The more the capacitors get charged, the more coils get switched from parallel to series until either the preset maximum voltage is reached (meaning the capacitors have reached full charge) or all coils (in a phase) are connected in series.
The same trick can work for giving a low start speed wind generator for conventional accumulators but in that case you might want take some coils out of the circuit to raise the speed above the charging threshold. As soon as the wind picks up those coils can be added back in the mix.
The summary is probably correct, although possibly by accident. There are two types of prison sentences in the US: those which can be served simultaneously ("concurrent sentences") and those which have to be served consecutively ("consecutive sentences"). His sentences probably fall in the former category so he would end up with a maximum stay of 5 years, no matter how on how many counts he has been convicted.
Not entirely true. Adaptive optics depend on seeing a small, bright object of a known (round) shape. This object can be a 'real' guide star if one happens to be available within the field of view of the telescope. If there is no such star the object can be created using a laser.
This could theoretically also be used in 'reverse': if there is a small, bright object of a known shape in the field of view of the telescope it could be used to model the atmospheric distortion and correct for it using adaptive objects. The world is littered with small, bright objects of known shape. Using a laser would somewhat defeat the aspect of secrecy unless that laser used a bandwidth invisible to the naked eye (in which case it could still be detected using sensors).
The real question is why anyone would bother using adaptive optics in a spy satellite. If you want that kind of resolution a drone aircraft is much cheaper, more flexible and less prone to weather-related blackouts...
That is a pretty silly reason to refrain from using an application. If this program fits your class but you are (easily...) offended by the name, just change it. Or, better still, get over it. A name is a name, nothing more. What is it that you are afraid of? Lawsuits? Ridicule?
No no no, please don't use Wine to *port* applications to non-Windows platforms. That only serves to perpetuate the uglyness that is Win32, brings Windows-idiosyncrasies to those platforms and leads to stagnation in user interface development as Microsoft gets to dictate how the UI on other platforms should act (and in some cases even look, even though that can be amended with Wine's skinning support).
Use wine to run Windows apps until they can be phased out, sure. But please write or port apps to a more sane API!
Sure I could, but Chrome is not just Webkit. It is Webkit plus whatever Google did to it, with a different backend (skia) and a different javascript runtime. A browser is more than just the rendering engine...
I have the Windows version of Chrome installed in my .wine directory and have dabbled a bit with it to see if some websites I built render OK on it. Chrome under wine runs, albeit somewhat haphazardly - it crashes quite often and has abysmal font rendering (a Wine problem, really). For fun I just installed the Crossover version of Chromium and tried it. The experience between these two is very similar: it looks the same (except for the Google-branded coloring of the Windows-version vs. the unbranded coloring of the Crossover version), has the same font rendering problems, crashes frequently. This is of course to be expected but it raises the question of the value of a winelib 'port' vs. running the Windows binary using the wine runtime. I prefer the latter, as that does not give anyone the illusion that the winelib port should be seen as a viable 'native' port for Linux and Mac (I guess, but for lack of a Mac (and the lack of desire to get one) I can not state this with any type of authority). Wine can help in getting rid of Windows, but winelib does not help in getting rid of Windows-isms. Code ported with winelib still feels alien, and acts in ways which do not fit in. Linux (and Mac) are in many ways better than Windows, but not by being 'a better Windows'. In many cases they are better because they are not like Windows at all.
Hard links can not cross filesystem borders. This makes hard links unusable for common linking tasks on the desktop. Soft links can cross filesystem borders but they suffer the same fate as Windows 'shortcuts' when the target file is moved: the link goes dead. This does not happen with OS/2's shadow copies. One of the biggest problem with these is that they only work within the Workplace Shell (from which they derive): try to use them from the command line and you'll find they simply do not exist.
No need to fire up the BP6 as it has been running more or less non-stop since I bought it in 1999. First as a workstation, later - and still - as a server. In tandem with a Webplayer it serves all our needs. Eventually I will replace it with something smaller and less power-hungry but for now it seems content serving our net from underneath the stairs...
So the Democratic Convention will not be supported by Linux users. After all it's them who needs support more than Linux users do... They can get by fine without seeing the politico's strut their stuff, there are other parties to vote for after all... and in the end it won't make a difference anyway... Republicrats or Demolicans...
With regard to this no-fly list one of the more effective ways of fighting back is to refrain from flying whenever possible. Of course you should not forget to let the airlines know that you would have flown if it were not for the fact that you resent being treated like a bovine crime suspect. It is not like the experience of air transport is a favorable one in the first place so not flying when there are alternatives is not really a sacrifice...
Fortunate then that not everyone is out to get rich. In case you forget, financial gain is not the only possible motivation.
*US based* internet radio's last stand...
Don't forget... In the free world US laws do not apply...
I'd say there are many better options to run an extention to your brain on than a proprietary, chained and DRM-encumbered device with a remote kill switch under control of a for-profit organisation...
...there would be some business for an enterprising American to act as a proxy buyer for Europeans who are tired of being overcharged for consumer electronics. Even with shipping and import duties it is usually much less expensive to buy stuff in the US than over here in Europe, but more and more US retailers refuse to do business 'overseas'. The same goes for many sellers on auction-sites. Which I find particularly strange as it is not that hard to use an escrow-service to make sure both parties keep to the deal.
There are companies which provide something like this service but they charge so much that it negates the advantage of buying in the US...
Nail, meet hammer...
I was scheduled to fly from Vancouver to Amsterdam on the 12th of september 2001. Needless to say I did not leave Vancouver for a week or so. Before that I visited the US quite regularly, on average 2-3 times per year. After that I have visited the US only once - to attend the 2003 IETF meeting in SF. What can I say? I just don't feel very welcome anymore. And as the world is a large place with many other locations to visit I just go elsewhere. Strangely enough I have not even considered going to the US this year, even though the low dollar would make this quite affordable. It just does not feel like it would be a pleasant experience.
I sincerely hope this paranoia will eventually pass so that the US will get the chance to show its good side(s) again.
USsians, make it happen! Get those terrorists out from between your ears and return to those ideas which made you a great country!
(says I while thinking about how to encrypt all communications so my Swedish government will not intercept everything...)
SMS has been and will be milked until the cow is not just dry but parched. The difference between actual cost and price of SMS is ludicrous. And as that actual price only goes down, why to they raise the price to the customer (I know, because they can...)?
Most modern phones can do GPRS or better... which, even though still overpriced, is quite a bit more affordable per bit than SMS. IM clients are available for many phones. Cost per message is radically lower, messages can be longer... What is missing? What would need to be added/removed to turn an IM client into a substitute for SMS so we can finally put that tired old cow to pasture?
- it needs to start when the phone is turned on ...without incurring onerous fees... ...or draining the battery...
- it would be nice if the addressing scheme was compatible with phone numbers
- it would need to keep open a data connection...
-
-
Many people separate their email provider from their internet access provider, the same should be doable with mobile communications. It will be hard to make it as efficient as the provider can but that can not be helped. It is imperative to build something over which the provider has no power - other than the usual contract clauses or IP blocking antics. Those can be ignored, circumvented by using another provider or fought in court if needs be.
As to the food thing the solution is simple: bring your own. Just stuff some sandwiches in your pack/case/whatever and eat those instead of the swill those fast fodder companies sell. You can eat what you want, when and where you want it. Drink tea instead of sugar-water-in-a-can. It is cheaper too...
All the more reason for us Europeans to move away from commercial software to free software. Unfortunately for the payware-peddlers once a company has moved to free software it will be hard to get them to accept their ransom notes ever again - unless the free software turns out to be a dud of course... but that has yet to happen in my personal experience. So, from Adobe to whatever company starts with a Z, maybe you should think twice before pricing yourself out of the mark
Or, to make it even easier, use the CO2 from the atmosphere to feed algae, use the oxygen released by the algae together with the algae themselves to create fuel. You'd need something to keep the whole thing from freezing but that should be solvable using solar collectors. You'd need water but that seems to be present in quantity on Mars. As long as the sun shines it should be possible to keep up production. Yes, you'd need some form of containment to keep those algea from infecting the 'pristine' Martian soil as long as we don't know whether Mars ever harboured life. Once that question has been answered... and it turns out to be negative... by all means let those algae go right ahead and 'colonise' the planet (if they can find somewhere to grow that is. Maybe lichen would be better for that purpose...)
OK, we now know what you lost when going to Vista: about 1 GB of memory, 30 seconds when waking up from sleep, some patience to click those 'Are You Really Sure That You Want ...' buttons...
Now, for general interest and in the name of sanity please tell us what you *gained* from paying your tithe to Microsoft to step on the bandwagon called Vista. Is that gain worth the loss? Does the future look better now that you use Vista? Or is it just that Microsoft's decision to retire XP leaves you - in your opinion - with no other choice?
The more you tighten your grip, MAFIAA (or MAFIEU...), the more potential profits will slip through your fingers.
No one at all. None. Zilch. 320 bytes of earth will do in any drive for good.
320 terabytes on the other hand...