Our left-leaning government is overtaxing the general population to the extent that it already has a $6 billion surplus and projections suggest that will reach over $7 billion by year's end.
Meanwhile, we have pepole dying on hospital waiting lists (one of the excuses for high taxation is public-funded healthcare), our police are crying out for more resources, our Airforce was forced to sell its jet-fighters, and a list of other indicators show that the government is not doing its job of funding public services adequately.
What's more, we're just about to see another hike in taxes on gasoline.
So we suffer from both problems -- overtaxation and under-spending on the part of government.
I've travelled internationally quite a bit in the past few years and although I've yet to find a country with "pleasant" border control, the USA counts as the worst first-impression I've ever experienced.
You're warned that getting the slightest thing wrong on your declaration card will see you thrown into jail and the staff appear to have manners and an abrasive attitude that are certainly the worse than Australia, New Zealand, Singapore or the UK.
You can't help but get the overwhelming impression that, as a tourist, you're not so much welcomed as tollerated as a temporary visitor to the USA.
With all the new measures in place, and the presumption of guilt that accompanies them, I certainly wouldn't put the USA very high on my list of places to visit again.
Once you're through the airport it's a nice place and the people I met there were great -- but that border-control is a *real* turn-off.
Besides which, what's with LAX? I've never had to queue on the sidewalk to get to the check-in counter before -- it's crazy!
The NZ government has gone out of their way to try and destroy my life since I publicized the risks associated with home-built cruise missiles.
I still have my missile (largely due to the fact that a network of friends have stored it safely in such a way that I can honestly say "I have no idea where it is") and had considered taking it on a tour of the country so that people could actually see what I've been talking about.
My lawyer advises me however, that to do so would almost certainly result in a very severe prison term. After all, they've already broken the law in respect to the actions they've taken against me so they've proven that, as far as they're concerned, the ends justifies the means.
He's strongly of the opinion that the government is just itching for an excuse to throw me in jail on some trumped-up terrorism charge because I've become such a thorn in their side.
In this country It's not illegal to build a cruise missile, and it's not even illegal to own one, nor is it illegal to transport one -- but, as a criminal lawyer of long standing he made it quite clear to me that under the new anti-terrorism laws we now live in a police state and that the government can do whatever it wants to who-ever it wants to -- by simply accusing them of terrorist activities.
In the case of my tour, they'd likely accuse me of moving the missile as the precursor to a terrorist action.
It wouldn't matter whether they were able to win such a trumped-up case, because here in NZ (as in the USA), people accused of such things seem to spend inordinately long periods of time in jail just waiting for their case to come to court. We have a guy here who's been in prison for 16 months already and, even though our High Court ruled just the other day that the head of our Security Inteligence Service had shown bias against the guy and has had to resign -- the imprisoned "suspect" is still having to wait at least another 6 months for his day in court.
It makes no difference apparently, that I've always been totally open in my activities and the reasoning behind them, and was planning to have a media contingent on my little tour. I don't recall any *real* terrorists inviting the media along on one of their attacks or offering to share all their information with the government.
I don't know whether I should really angry that governments have used the war against terror to give themselves such draconian powers, or if I should feel sad that the public are allowing them to do this without even a whimper.
I suspect that we will eventually regard these days as a dark period in the world's history -- not because of terrorist activities, but because so many people gave up so many freedoms so easily.
In my regular newspaper column I recently wrote about the phenomenon that is the bargain-bin music browser.
These are the people who spend hours pawing through the big bins of massively discounted CDs you see in the corner of many music stores.
These discs are often compilations or recordings that, for one reason or another, simply never sold at the full retail price.
Although the bargain-bin browsers will happily pay $1, or even $10 for these discounted albums, they'd never ever consider paying full price.
The only way the stores can clear them is to virtually give them away.
Well the arrival of P2P filesharing networks has produced the ultimate extrapolation of the bargain-bin browser.
These are the people who will download a track or an entire album -- but only because it's free.
They would likely never buy the album or tracks in question -- even if they did turn up at $5 in the local bargain-bin.
So do these people really represent lost sales to the recording industry?
No they don't.
A huge percentage of those who download a large proportion of the music found on P2P networks simply would never buy the music they copy to their PC's hard drive or CD writer.
For the recording industry to claim otherwise is, to use the politest term that springs to mind, disingenuous.
Yes, filesharing probably does have some negative effect on disc sales, but the recording industry have brought that on themselves by overstating their case to the extent that nobody actually believes them any more.
It strikes me that trying to create a fusion reactor is an awful waste of time, effort and money when there's one just just across the road (in space terms) that we can use for free!
If all the money that's been poured into fusion research so far had been poured into making those "cheap" solar arrays they keep telling us are "just around the corner" then we'd all have roofs made of the stuff that would make us energy self-sufficient and we'd even be driving electric cars that were powered by the sun.
It seems stupid to try and reinvent the wheel (fusion) when nature has done such a wonderful job about ninety quintillion times over and we can harness the power of at least one of those natural fusion reactors very safely.
Given that the terrain may be filled with obstacles and uneven in contour, why didn't someone come up with a machine that simply jumped 30-40 yards at a time -- using a combustion ram to provide the motive force.
This would have potentially overcome many of the problems and if it were designed to be self-righting, even landing on an award contour and rolling over shouldn't be too much of a problem.
Another alternative is something that had short-term "hover" capabilities -- ie: checked the path ahead was clear for the next x-yards and then, drove that distance. If it saw something that appeared to be an obstacle it could hover over it for whatever distance was required.
Come to think of it -- why were DARPA so all-keen on using wheeled vehicles? What would be wrong with a hovercraft -- even one without a skirt so that the barbed-wire wasn't so much of an issue?
Wheels are okay, but they're certainly not the best option for uneven and unpredictable terrain -- after all, nature is an *expert* designer but you don't see any animals with wheels do you:-)
(1) In Formula-1 racing, the helmets have visors that are covered with clear plastic tear-off sheets. Instead of wiping their visor if they get dirt on it while they're in the middle of a race, they just tear off the topmost sheet and they're good to go
This might be a viable option -- but then again it's possible that the sheets could tear or jam in such a way as to produce a high degree of reflection and significantly reduced array efficiency. It's just another point of failure.
(2) Pick the dust up. They make simple electrostatic floor cleaning brushes here on earth (as seen on TV) that pick up dust like nobody's business
Possible -- but it would also require the creation of a high-voltage charge -- and the other sensitive electronics onboard may not like that kind of charge. The high levels of ionizing radiation on the surface of Mars may also affect the operation of such devices.
(4) Gently blow atmospheric air across them. Small motor, high speed fan, nozzle directing the air across the surface. Probably won't work well on Mars with the thin atmosphere
Wouldn't even work on earth with its comparitively dense atmosphere. Haven't you noticed that even if you take a dusty car for a high-speed run at 100mph or greater, it's still covered in dust when you stop? Do a google on "boundary layer" and "laminar flow" to find out why this method won't work with very small dust particles.
(5) The system that deploys the solar panels could be designed so that the action of deploying them passes the panels past the cleaning apparatus. This, of course, favors designs that have the panels slide open - or unroll as with the international space station
It would not be a good idea to fold and unfold the panels any more than is absolutely necessary (ie: do it only once). Even the best-designed mechanism always suffers the possibility of jamming when used in a very dusty environment -- especially if there's also a high degree of thermal cycling. From memory, at least one of the planetary probes lost the use of a camera (or was it an antenna array?) due to such jamming. To open and close the solar arrays on a regular schedule would significantly increase the probability of failure and that failure would likely be catastrophic to the mission.
I don't understand how people are complaining about how the batteries are slowly decaying or that the solar day length is decreasing with the onset of winter. If it even takes three days to recharge in the winter - and you can only do 1/2 the work in a regular day: you'd still have a working probe as opposed to not having a working probe. If it can survive long enough, you'd get around to summer again
I suspect that the extremely low temperatures encountered on Mars would fatally damage the battery packs if they weren't kept warm. Once the amount of energy available during the martian winter day falls below the level required to maintain the battery temperature overnight -- the cells would be irreversibly damaged.
My Li-Ion cell phone battery has been discharged and recharged hundreds of times over the course of four years - and it still holds a usable charge. I thought that airgel was supposed to solve the temperature problem for the electronics (they can easily build spacecraft where the internal temperature of the electronics is maintained at whatever you want)
There is no such thing as "perfect" insulation so energy has to be expended overnight to keep the critical components (batteries, etc) from being damaged by freezing. As mentioned above, once the energy extracted during the daytime becomes insufficient to provide this heat -- the mission is over.
What am I supposed to do when I irrepairably scratch my favorite DVD? Go buy another one? That's crap
When I spoke with the spokesperson for the NZ equivalent of the RIAA, he told me that making "backups" of disks was illegal and the industry would not allow it.
His rationale was that if you buy a Porsche and you wreck or lose it, you simply have to go out and by another -- so why should a CD be any different?
Amazing isn't it? These people don't seem (or choose not to) grasp the difference between the intellectual property and the medium on which it is delivered.
He told me that when you buy a CD you're not buying a license to listen to the IP, you're buying a disc.
When I suggested therefore that if I bought another disc (CDR) and then copied the music from the CD I'd bought and paid for, there should be no problem then -- since I've done nothing to that original music disc at all.
Obviously he then changed his tack and exclaimed that you were buying more than a disc when you purchased a CD.
These guys are slipery as snake oil and completely disingenuous.
If they could charge you an additional fee every time you played your CD or DVD they would.
Is the Metropolitan Museum of Art going to win a case against Kodak, Fuji, Canon and others for making devices that allow people to make backup copies their vacation memories?
No, of course not -- and by the same token, you're quite legally entitled to take photos of any DVD disk you've bought.
So what's the problem?:-)
I sometimes use DVD2SVCD to rip DVDs onto CDRs in VCD or SVCD format. This allows me to give my daughter her own copy that she can play on her computer (which doesn't have a DVD drive) and thus protects my *investment* in the original DVD disk from suffering the same fate as all those music CDs of mine she has already scratched!
Has the movie industry lost any revenue? Hell no, I would never have bought two copies of *any* DVD and my daughter would have simply had to go without.
So where's the loss? Who's been injured? Where's the crime?
Hell, if I couldn't guarantee that I could *protect* my investment by making a backup copy, I'd probably give up buying DVDs and then the MPAA would be completely miss out on my dollars.
I wonder if some of the keyless systems are on the unlicensed-use part of the spectrum around 1.2GHz?
This is close to the frequencies used by civilian GPS systems -- so one wonders whether the boys in black may be testing some GPS-jamming gear designed to defeat a threat such as terrorist-built cruise missile?
If other keyless systems are on 900Mhz or 2.4GHz (other unlicensed-use frequencies) then that would explain why only *some* people were affected.
It may also explain why somewhere like the Empire State Building has the same effect -- as a "high points" target for terrorists they might well have a full-time GPS jammer operating around it.
Can someone in NYC with a hand-held GPS go and check that out for us please (but watch you don't get a free holiday in Camp Delta for your troubles;-)
I noticed that my Yahoomail account experienced a *dramatic* drop in spam levels for the first week or two after the CANSPAM Act was enacted.
What's more, the very few spam that did arrive were liberally laced with physical addresses, opt-out links and other concessions to the provisions of the Act.
It's quite likely that spammers were worried about sending spam to "big name" domains for fear that they'd be prosecuted under the Act.
Of course those prosecutions didn't happen so the spam levels have gradually risen back to their pre-Act levels and few of them bother to try and comply with the provisions of the Act any longer.
A law is only any use and only has an effect if the authorities are prepared to back it up with consistent, stiff and timely enforcement.
In that regard, the CANSPAM Act is nothing more than a joke.
This is very true -- but don't get fooled by cameras that have the name of some prestigeous optics maker plastered all over them.
Lens makers (like most manufactures) have good products and not-so-good products.
Just because you see a camera selling for $200 that claims to have lenses made by a top-spec company doesn't mean that you will be getting top-spec lenses -- chances are you'll be getting a budget lens.
Also take note that in some cases, the name only reflects the *designer* of the lens, not necessarily the manufacturer. Once again this means you may not be getting the primo-quality you expect.
It's really worth doing some searches and trawling the various video camcorder websites. One that's quite good is www.dvinfo.net/
Now I'm lusting after the JVC HDTV camcoders which record MPEG/2 to miniDV
The problem with MPEG2 is that it's a bitch to edit and you need a *very* grunty PC to render it at acceptable speeds.
Unless you don't intend to edit your footage then you're much better off with standard a DV format that doesn't use I-frames so can be very simply processed in a reasonably priced NLE package.
The best camcorder for 2003 according to some is the Panasonic PV-DV953. It is a 3-CCD camcorder for barely under $1000. It's biggest drawback is its poor low light performance. This is intrinsic to inexpensive 3-CCD camcorders
I had the PAL version of this camera (MX500) and it is a pretty damned good machine for the money and made the 1CCD Sony I used to have look really lousy by comparison.
While it's true that the low-light abilities of these cameras (and indeed, most of the more recent 3CCD cameras such as the Sony 950 etc) is not as good as those with larger CCDs, it's not as bad as you might think.
The low sensitivity generally manifests itself as grain (noise) on the image which is caused by the video amp being wound up high to compensate for the low output from the CCDs. You have two options -- provide more light (a good idea), reduce the shutter speed (a special ultra-low-light speed is offered for this but it's pretty useless for anything other than stills and "special effects") or you can just switch to manual and set the video gain to a more realistic level -- with the side-effect that the image will be dark (but isn't that what low-light means?:-)
These cameras aren't perfect but all I've found to complain about is:
1. The zoom control is rather sensitive and sometimes it can be very hard to zoom nice and slow when you're in a hurry.
2. The standard lens has quite a narrow field of view. Although I never needed it with my trusty old Sony, the first thing I bought for the Panasonic was a wide-angle lens. Without the WA lens I found it difficult to take indoor shots that didn't cut out half the required scene.
3. The eye-piece viewfinder (as opposed to the fold-out LCD screen) has insufficient resolution to allow accurate focusing when in manual mode. However, this is a problem intrinsic to just about all consumer-level (and a number of prosumer) cameras these days.
On the plus side -- you get a nice, compact, well balanced 3CCD camera for little more than many 1CCD units. It has top-loading (so you don't have to take it off the tripod to change tapes), a good range of interfaces (firewire, composite, SVideo), zebra stripes, excellent manual override of auto settings (focus, shutter, iris, etc), gives me nearly two hours of recording on the standard battery (when not using the fold-out LCD), produces absolutely *stunning* images, supports 16:9 resolution better than some, has optical image stabilization, etc, etc.
These cameras (like most modern units) also offer still-camera capabilities -- but don't believe the 3 megapixel claim -- that's an interpolated figure and, in reality, they produce images that look like 1MP at best. Still, it's nice to have the abilty to whack off some stills when you want to -- and it even has an inbuilt flash for such purposes. What's more, the optical image stabilizer works for stills so, even with slow shutter speeds and a shakey hand, you get a nice sharp image.
Is it value for money?
Well unless you really need to do a lot of indoor filming using only ambient lighting then I think it scores very highly.
If you really *must* have the best low-light performance available (albeit at the cost of accurate color rendition) then choose an older 1CCD camera or a proper Prosumer unit such as the Sony VX2000/2100 ($$)
Digital camcorders are like most things in life -- it's very seldom you say "hell, I wish I'd bought something that wasn't as good as this" -)
Well those familiar with my plight and that of my low-cost cruise missile project will be very much aware that the NZ government is more than happy to rape its citizens and break its own laws in order to curry favor with the US government.
The big wory for NZers must be the effect this FTA could have on the CER treaty between NZ and Australia.
It would not surprise me if NZ now came under extreme pressure to fall into line with Australian laws (aka: US laws) in key areas.
Let's face it, the NZ government had no hesitation in handing over the responsibility for creating and maintaining the laws that control non-prescription medications in NZ (including vitamins and supplements) to Australia just a few short months ago.
This does not bode well for things such as NZ copyright, patent and other IP laws.
It's a six week test - presumably the companies want to get some feedback. If the ads annoy you, just e-mail their customer service department or wherever with a polite request that they stop using the ads. See where that gets us
Well just make sure you don't use your spam-free email address when you complain because chances are that anyone who's arrogant enough to use up your bandwidth without permission also won't think twice about spamming you or adding your address to the spam lists (sorry -targeted email marketing lists) they sell their clients.
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What would be impressive is getting that golfcart from 0 to 100 in 6 seconds
:-)
Send a golfcart to me and I'll do it
Yes, if religious music is what spins your wheels, now you can have wooden speakers made with... what else but Christ's Sake :-)
You think *you're* overtaxed?
How about New Zealand?
Our left-leaning government is overtaxing the general population to the extent that it already has a $6 billion surplus and projections suggest that will reach over $7 billion by year's end.
Meanwhile, we have pepole dying on hospital waiting lists (one of the excuses for high taxation is public-funded healthcare), our police are crying out for more resources, our Airforce was forced to sell its jet-fighters, and a list of other indicators show that the government is not doing its job of funding public services adequately.
What's more, we're just about to see another hike in taxes on gasoline.
So we suffer from both problems -- overtaxation and under-spending on the part of government.
I've travelled internationally quite a bit in the past few years and although I've yet to find a country with "pleasant" border control, the USA counts as the worst first-impression I've ever experienced.
You're warned that getting the slightest thing wrong on your declaration card will see you thrown into jail and the staff appear to have manners and an abrasive attitude that are certainly the worse than Australia, New Zealand, Singapore or the UK.
You can't help but get the overwhelming impression that, as a tourist, you're not so much welcomed as tollerated as a temporary visitor to the USA.
With all the new measures in place, and the presumption of guilt that accompanies them, I certainly wouldn't put the USA very high on my list of places to visit again.
Once you're through the airport it's a nice place and the people I met there were great -- but that border-control is a *real* turn-off.
Besides which, what's with LAX? I've never had to queue on the sidewalk to get to the check-in counter before -- it's crazy!
It seems that our lords and masters still believe that security by obscurity is a valid model :-(
The problem is that its *everyone* who pays the price for the stupidity these people force upon us.
The NZ government has gone out of their way to try and destroy my life since I publicized the risks associated with home-built cruise missiles.
:-(
I still have my missile (largely due to the fact that a network of friends have stored it safely in such a way that I can honestly say "I have no idea where it is") and had considered taking it on a tour of the country so that people could actually see what I've been talking about.
My lawyer advises me however, that to do so would almost certainly result in a very severe prison term. After all, they've already broken the law in respect to the actions they've taken against me so they've proven that, as far as they're concerned, the ends justifies the means.
He's strongly of the opinion that the government is just itching for an excuse to throw me in jail on some trumped-up terrorism charge because I've become such a thorn in their side.
In this country It's not illegal to build a cruise missile, and it's not even illegal to own one, nor is it illegal to transport one -- but, as a criminal lawyer of long standing he made it quite clear to me that under the new anti-terrorism laws we now live in a police state and that the government can do whatever it wants to who-ever it wants to -- by simply accusing them of terrorist activities.
In the case of my tour, they'd likely accuse me of moving the missile as the precursor to a terrorist action.
It wouldn't matter whether they were able to win such a trumped-up case, because here in NZ (as in the USA), people accused of such things seem to spend inordinately long periods of time in jail just waiting for their case to come to court. We have a guy here who's been in prison for 16 months already and, even though our High Court ruled just the other day that the head of our Security Inteligence Service had shown bias against the guy and has had to resign -- the imprisoned "suspect" is still having to wait at least another 6 months for his day in court.
It makes no difference apparently, that I've always been totally open in my activities and the reasoning behind them, and was planning to have a media contingent on my little tour. I don't recall any *real* terrorists inviting the media along on one of their attacks or offering to share all their information with the government.
I don't know whether I should really angry that governments have used the war against terror to give themselves such draconian powers, or if I should feel sad that the public are allowing them to do this without even a whimper.
I suspect that we will eventually regard these days as a dark period in the world's history -- not because of terrorist activities, but because so many people gave up so many freedoms so easily.
P.T. Barnum was right I'm afraid
In my regular newspaper column I recently wrote about the phenomenon that is the bargain-bin music browser.
These are the people who spend hours pawing through the big bins of massively discounted CDs you see in the corner of many music stores.
These discs are often compilations or recordings that, for one reason or another, simply never sold at the full retail price.
Although the bargain-bin browsers will happily pay $1, or even $10 for these discounted albums, they'd never ever consider paying full price.
The only way the stores can clear them is to virtually give them away.
Well the arrival of P2P filesharing networks has produced the ultimate extrapolation of the bargain-bin browser.
These are the people who will download a track or an entire album -- but only because it's free.
They would likely never buy the album or tracks in question -- even if they did turn up at $5 in the local bargain-bin.
So do these people really represent lost sales to the recording industry?
No they don't.
A huge percentage of those who download a large proportion of the music found on P2P networks simply would never buy the music they copy to their PC's hard drive or CD writer.
For the recording industry to claim otherwise is, to use the politest term that springs to mind, disingenuous.
Yes, filesharing probably does have some negative effect on disc sales, but the recording industry have brought that on themselves by overstating their case to the extent that nobody actually believes them any more.
It strikes me that trying to create a fusion reactor is an awful waste of time, effort and money when there's one just just across the road (in space terms) that we can use for free!
If all the money that's been poured into fusion research so far had been poured into making those "cheap" solar arrays they keep telling us are "just around the corner" then we'd all have roofs made of the stuff that would make us energy self-sufficient and we'd even be driving electric cars that were powered by the sun.
It seems stupid to try and reinvent the wheel (fusion) when nature has done such a wonderful job about ninety quintillion times over and we can harness the power of at least one of those natural fusion reactors very safely.
These days, isn't the term "advertising etiquette" an oxymoron?
Given that the terrain may be filled with obstacles and uneven in contour, why didn't someone come up with a machine that simply jumped 30-40 yards at a time -- using a combustion ram to provide the motive force.
:-)
This would have potentially overcome many of the problems and if it were designed to be self-righting, even landing on an award contour and rolling over shouldn't be too much of a problem.
Another alternative is something that had short-term "hover" capabilities -- ie: checked the path ahead was clear for the next x-yards and then, drove that distance. If it saw something that appeared to be an obstacle it could hover over it for whatever distance was required.
Come to think of it -- why were DARPA so all-keen on using wheeled vehicles? What would be wrong with a hovercraft -- even one without a skirt so that the barbed-wire wasn't so much of an issue?
Wheels are okay, but they're certainly not the best option for uneven and unpredictable terrain -- after all, nature is an *expert* designer but you don't see any animals with wheels do you
(1) In Formula-1 racing, the helmets have visors that are covered with clear plastic tear-off sheets. Instead of wiping their visor if they get dirt on it while they're in the middle of a race, they just tear off the topmost sheet and they're good to go
This might be a viable option -- but then again it's possible that the sheets could tear or jam in such a way as to produce a high degree of reflection and significantly reduced array efficiency. It's just another point of failure.
(2) Pick the dust up. They make simple electrostatic floor cleaning brushes here on earth (as seen on TV) that pick up dust like nobody's business
Possible -- but it would also require the creation of a high-voltage charge -- and the other sensitive electronics onboard may not like that kind of charge. The high levels of ionizing radiation on the surface of Mars may also affect the operation of such devices.
(4) Gently blow atmospheric air across them. Small motor, high speed fan, nozzle directing the air across the surface. Probably won't work well on Mars with the thin atmosphere
Wouldn't even work on earth with its comparitively dense atmosphere. Haven't you noticed that even if you take a dusty car for a high-speed run at 100mph or greater, it's still covered in dust when you stop? Do a google on "boundary layer" and "laminar flow" to find out why this method won't work with very small dust particles.
(5) The system that deploys the solar panels could be designed so that the action of deploying them passes the panels past the cleaning apparatus. This, of course, favors designs that have the panels slide open - or unroll as with the international space station
It would not be a good idea to fold and unfold the panels any more than is absolutely necessary (ie: do it only once). Even the best-designed mechanism always suffers the possibility of jamming when used in a very dusty environment -- especially if there's also a high degree of thermal cycling. From memory, at least one of the planetary probes lost the use of a camera (or was it an antenna array?) due to such jamming. To open and close the solar arrays on a regular schedule would significantly increase the probability of failure and that failure would likely be catastrophic to the mission.
I don't understand how people are complaining about how the batteries are slowly decaying or that the solar day length is decreasing with the onset of winter. If it even takes three days to recharge in the winter - and you can only do 1/2 the work in a regular day: you'd still have a working probe as opposed to not having a working probe. If it can survive long enough, you'd get around to summer again
I suspect that the extremely low temperatures encountered on Mars would fatally damage the battery packs if they weren't kept warm. Once the amount of energy available during the martian winter day falls below the level required to maintain the battery temperature overnight -- the cells would be irreversibly damaged.
My Li-Ion cell phone battery has been discharged and recharged hundreds of times over the course of four years - and it still holds a usable charge. I thought that airgel was supposed to solve the temperature problem for the electronics (they can easily build spacecraft where the internal temperature of the electronics is maintained at whatever you want)
There is no such thing as "perfect" insulation so energy has to be expended overnight to keep the critical components (batteries, etc) from being damaged by freezing. As mentioned above, once the energy extracted during the daytime becomes insufficient to provide this heat -- the mission is over.
Buy a Microsoft product, get an orgasm!
:-)
You're under the mistaken assumption that people have an orgasm every time they're screwed
What am I supposed to do when I irrepairably scratch my favorite DVD? Go buy another one? That's crap
When I spoke with the spokesperson for the NZ equivalent of the RIAA, he told me that making "backups" of disks was illegal and the industry would not allow it.
His rationale was that if you buy a Porsche and you wreck or lose it, you simply have to go out and by another -- so why should a CD be any different?
Amazing isn't it? These people don't seem (or choose not to) grasp the difference between the intellectual property and the medium on which it is delivered.
He told me that when you buy a CD you're not buying a license to listen to the IP, you're buying a disc.
When I suggested therefore that if I bought another disc (CDR) and then copied the music from the CD I'd bought and paid for, there should be no problem then -- since I've done nothing to that original music disc at all.
Obviously he then changed his tack and exclaimed that you were buying more than a disc when you purchased a CD.
These guys are slipery as snake oil and completely disingenuous.
If they could charge you an additional fee every time you played your CD or DVD they would.
Is the Metropolitan Museum of Art going to win a case against Kodak, Fuji, Canon and others for making devices that allow people to make backup copies their vacation memories?
:-)
No, of course not -- and by the same token, you're quite legally entitled to take photos of any DVD disk you've bought.
So what's the problem?
I sometimes use DVD2SVCD to rip DVDs onto CDRs in VCD or SVCD format. This allows me to give my daughter her own copy that she can play on her computer (which doesn't have a DVD drive) and thus protects my *investment* in the original DVD disk from suffering the same fate as all those music CDs of mine she has already scratched!
Has the movie industry lost any revenue? Hell no, I would never have bought two copies of *any* DVD and my daughter would have simply had to go without.
So where's the loss? Who's been injured? Where's the crime?
Hell, if I couldn't guarantee that I could *protect* my investment by making a backup copy, I'd probably give up buying DVDs and then the MPAA would be completely miss out on my dollars.
I wonder if some of the keyless systems are on the unlicensed-use part of the spectrum around 1.2GHz?
;-)
This is close to the frequencies used by civilian GPS systems -- so one wonders whether the boys in black may be testing some GPS-jamming gear designed to defeat a threat such as terrorist-built cruise missile?
If other keyless systems are on 900Mhz or 2.4GHz (other unlicensed-use frequencies) then that would explain why only *some* people were affected.
It may also explain why somewhere like the Empire State Building has the same effect -- as a "high points" target for terrorists they might well have a full-time GPS jammer operating around it.
Can someone in NYC with a hand-held GPS go and check that out for us please (but watch you don't get a free holiday in Camp Delta for your troubles
I noticed that my Yahoomail account experienced a *dramatic* drop in spam levels for the first week or two after the CANSPAM Act was enacted.
What's more, the very few spam that did arrive were liberally laced with physical addresses, opt-out links and other concessions to the provisions of the Act.
It's quite likely that spammers were worried about sending spam to "big name" domains for fear that they'd be prosecuted under the Act.
Of course those prosecutions didn't happen so the spam levels have gradually risen back to their pre-Act levels and few of them bother to try and comply with the provisions of the Act any longer.
A law is only any use and only has an effect if the authorities are prepared to back it up with consistent, stiff and timely enforcement.
In that regard, the CANSPAM Act is nothing more than a joke.
The Lens is important
This is very true -- but don't get fooled by cameras that have the name of some prestigeous optics maker plastered all over them.
Lens makers (like most manufactures) have good products and not-so-good products.
Just because you see a camera selling for $200 that claims to have lenses made by a top-spec company doesn't mean that you will be getting top-spec lenses -- chances are you'll be getting a budget lens.
Also take note that in some cases, the name only reflects the *designer* of the lens, not necessarily the manufacturer. Once again this means you may not be getting the primo-quality you expect.
It's really worth doing some searches and trawling the various video camcorder websites. One that's quite good is www.dvinfo.net/
Now I'm lusting after the JVC HDTV camcoders which record MPEG/2 to miniDV
The problem with MPEG2 is that it's a bitch to edit and you need a *very* grunty PC to render it at acceptable speeds.
Unless you don't intend to edit your footage then you're much better off with standard a DV format that doesn't use I-frames so can be very simply processed in a reasonably priced NLE package.
The best camcorder for 2003 according to some is the Panasonic PV-DV953. It is a 3-CCD camcorder for barely under $1000. It's biggest drawback is its poor low light performance. This is intrinsic to inexpensive 3-CCD camcorders
:-)
I had the PAL version of this camera (MX500) and it is a pretty damned good machine for the money and made the 1CCD Sony I used to have look really lousy by comparison.
While it's true that the low-light abilities of these cameras (and indeed, most of the more recent 3CCD cameras such as the Sony 950 etc) is not as good as those with larger CCDs, it's not as bad as you might think.
The low sensitivity generally manifests itself as grain (noise) on the image which is caused by the video amp being wound up high to compensate for the low output from the CCDs. You have two options -- provide more light (a good idea), reduce the shutter speed (a special ultra-low-light speed is offered for this but it's pretty useless for anything other than stills and "special effects") or you can just switch to manual and set the video gain to a more realistic level -- with the side-effect that the image will be dark (but isn't that what low-light means?
These cameras aren't perfect but all I've found to complain about is:
1. The zoom control is rather sensitive and sometimes it can be very hard to zoom nice and slow when you're in a hurry.
2. The standard lens has quite a narrow field of view. Although I never needed it with my trusty old Sony, the first thing I bought for the Panasonic was a wide-angle lens. Without the WA lens I found it difficult to take indoor shots that didn't cut out half the required scene.
3. The eye-piece viewfinder (as opposed to the fold-out LCD screen) has insufficient resolution to allow accurate focusing when in manual mode. However, this is a problem intrinsic to just about all consumer-level (and a number of prosumer) cameras these days.
On the plus side -- you get a nice, compact, well balanced 3CCD camera for little more than many 1CCD units. It has top-loading (so you don't have to take it off the tripod to change tapes), a good range of interfaces (firewire, composite, SVideo), zebra stripes, excellent manual override of auto settings (focus, shutter, iris, etc), gives me nearly two hours of recording on the standard battery (when not using the fold-out LCD), produces absolutely *stunning* images, supports 16:9 resolution better than some, has optical image stabilization, etc, etc.
These cameras (like most modern units) also offer still-camera capabilities -- but don't believe the 3 megapixel claim -- that's an interpolated figure and, in reality, they produce images that look like 1MP at best. Still, it's nice to have the abilty to whack off some stills when you want to -- and it even has an inbuilt flash for such purposes. What's more, the optical image stabilizer works for stills so, even with slow shutter speeds and a shakey hand, you get a nice sharp image.
Is it value for money?
Well unless you really need to do a lot of indoor filming using only ambient lighting then I think it scores very highly.
If you really *must* have the best low-light performance available (albeit at the cost of accurate color rendition) then choose an older 1CCD camera or a proper Prosumer unit such as the Sony VX2000/2100 ($$)
Digital camcorders are like most things in life -- it's very seldom you say "hell, I wish I'd bought something that wasn't as good as this" -)
You're dead right about the Trinitron style tube.
I bought a Viewsonic GT775 back in 1999 and it's performed brilliantly. I run it at 1280x1024 and it's very crisp with excellent geometry and color.
Sometimes I think I might like to try an LCD -- until I actually sit down in front of one for a while.
They've got a cool form-factor but they still don't equal a good CRT.
Well those familiar with my plight and that of my low-cost cruise missile project will be very much aware that the NZ government is more than happy to rape its citizens and break its own laws in order to curry favor with the US government.
See this page for details:
http://www.interestingprojects.com/cruisemissile/
The big wory for NZers must be the effect this FTA could have on the CER treaty between NZ and Australia.
It would not surprise me if NZ now came under extreme pressure to fall into line with Australian laws (aka: US laws) in key areas.
Let's face it, the NZ government had no hesitation in handing over the responsibility for creating and maintaining the laws that control non-prescription medications in NZ (including vitamins and supplements) to Australia just a few short months ago.
This does not bode well for things such as NZ copyright, patent and other IP laws.
That's also $5.06 profit per transaction, which means he grossed $202,400, and I'll bet his net take wasn't much lower than the gross
:-)
Let's hope he's cheated on his taxes and the IRS have read that article.
If it's good enough for Capone, it's good enough for spammers!
It's a six week test - presumably the companies want to get some feedback. If the ads annoy you, just e-mail their customer service department or wherever with a polite request that they stop using the ads. See where that gets us
Well just make sure you don't use your spam-free email address when you complain because chances are that anyone who's arrogant enough to use up your bandwidth without permission also won't think twice about spamming you or adding your address to the spam lists (sorry -targeted email marketing lists) they sell their clients.
Maybe Arthur C. Clarke and Kubrick were onto something with The Sentinel (aka 2001 a Space Odyssey)?