Indeed, but the rest of their service sucks ass. It's the only thing stopping me moving at the moment. [and actually, the dusty corners of the online banking are a bit flaky - the standing order stuff for instance]
Example: I am looking to buy a car. Barclays, as a special offer to me as a customer of 12 years will give me 11.9% APR on a loan (normally 13.9%). Egg, without knowing anything about me will offer 8.9% on the same amount, both with income protection etc etc.
No interest, but immediate charges on OD. A web site that doesn't have branch locations or telephone numbers 'because they are subject to change soon'. Losers.
I've personally seen two buildings damaged by trains in my days as a commuter. Reading station before they rebuilt it had a train go straight off the end of it's line into the station, and a similar thing has happened in the past at Slough. You can still see the cutting-torch marks in the roof beams.
Don't assume trains stay on rails because thats where you put them.
IMs are at least 10 years old already. CMU had Zephyrgrams when I was at college, and I think that had been around a little while then.
IM as implemented by ICQ or Yahoo only really serves to have strangers interrupt me with incoherent junk rather than merely fill my mailbox with it. If only IM clients has as much brains as some mail clients do.
I think it would be silly to change your bank simply because your OS doesn't support it.
Why? I use my OS more than I use my bank. If another bank (or any organisation for that matter) provides the service I want and the one that I currently use doesn't, then they lose! That's what free markets are all about.
My bank (Barclays in the UK) has a pretty crappy attitude to customers. A situation like this would probably be the nail in the coffin for them, as far as I'm concerned. I have other axes to grind with them though.
As it happens, my OS is Win2k and my main beef with other banks at the moment is the quality of their online banking. Barclays is one of the few that supports downloading statements in some useful format (albeit MS Money ofx files) so I can import them into something (actually MS Money at the moment). My credit card company (Egg) didn't seem to care at all about that, but thought that access via my TV was a useful thing.
As soon as I find a bank with decent online service, interest on current accounts, and a pro-customer attitude, I'm there.
I'd be interested to see what an IP Rate of 100 (or zero, whichever is better, also assuming a 100 point scale) could handle. Elephants can sit on it while you work maybe?
It's not to do with shock resistance, but with the seals.
It's two scales - the first digit is relating to dust ingress and the second to water, IIRC. The first goes from 0 to 6 and the second 0 to 8. The IP is for ingress protection.
Re:The good and the bad of it
on
GPS Meets PCS
·
· Score: 2
On the other hand, if the problem is nasty people phoning in bomb threats (which I doubt is what you're talking about), there are still payphones for such people to use. The two zillion bomb threats that have been phoned in in the NYC area should be proof enough of that...
And they already know exactly where the payphone is. I suppose they could even be made with a hardwired geo-location in them to make it easier to tie into this new system. How is that a better choice (for anonymity) than a cell phone?
I don't see the relevance to bomb threats or whatever though - I can go into a supermarket, buy a pay-as-you-go phone for less than 100 UKP, use it once and bin it, or just give it to someone, it's not tied to me in any way, AFAIK. If I were the sort of person that might make bomb threats, it concievable I might not be averse to braking the law, and could therefore waive the 100 UKP cost of the phone too.
However, unless there is a cop or similar at or near the payphone, the effect is the same - you know where someone was 10 minutes ago by the time you get there.
Or worse, let's say that Coca-cola has lots of ads in this system, and Pepsi pays me to ban those commercials.
Similar things already happen - U of MD at College Park changed to an all-Pepsi school as part of some exclusive deal with PepsiCo (including Taco Bell in the cafeteria, vending machines etc) a couple of years ago, much to the annoyance of my girlfriend, who's a Dr Pepper fan.
5. We can, as we have in the past, in times of war and of peace, reconcile the requirements of security with the demands of liberty.
7. We should resist efforts to target people because of their race, religion, ethnic background or appearance, including immigrants in general, Arab Americans and Muslims.
Ask some older Japanese Americans about these two clauses.
Can a college/isp/company/etc fire/kick off/expell someone for downloading MP3's anymore if they're doing it through this system?
I imagine that your employment contract may have some nitpicky clause about expecting you to work rather that download music during working hours with company-provided resources, regardless of whether it's illegal or not. (he says, posting to/. in the middle of the afternoon with a company-provided net connection)
[even more OT: WTF is up with Slashdot's posting code lately? Several times in the last few days I've had the stupid thing dump my post compalaining about 'formkeys', and then upon going back to re-submit, it's throw away the text... bleh]
fair point:) substitute 'might logically' for 'can'.
The part of his (sounds like a fair assumption) complaint I was picking at was the 'profiting from the death of 6000' aspect, when the thing was made at least 2 months ahead of those deaths, so it obviously was not made to do that.
I didn't see anything in the article to suggest this thing was knocked up in two weeks. Do you really believe that prior to the 11th, there were no cameras or surveillance, and everything was dandy?
A quick look at the Austin Museum of Art site confirms that the exhibition was opened July 21st, and actually closed last week. If anything you can complain about the NYT running the story, but not the original exhibit.
Hmm - that's sounds like digital radio though. This is a carrier on FM radio (like teletext or closed-captions on TV signals) - it's been around since at least 1990 or so.
Is anyone aware of an online service where I could plug in a route (not a single location) and get a listing of stations by genre along the way? I imagine this would be a popular add-on to the many online route/map services but none seem to have anything like this. What I'd like to see would be something like a listing of public radio station by frequency along my route; others would presumably prefer country stations, pop or rock programming, etc.
This is what RDS (Radio Data System) does in the UK and Europe. Apparently this is available in the US too, although on a much more limited scale (it's more or less universal here, and any new car radio supports it).
You get station ident on the display, traffic alerts from nearby stations and automatic search for particular types of program (PTY) - have your radio search for classical stations.
IIRC, Halcyon InstantASP does do ADO. It's a Java Servlet implementation of ASP and VBScript.
With native JDBC drivers (several vendors do them) for MS SQL, you could even keep your MS database, should you prefer to. It also has a Java-COM bridge to allow you to talk to your custom COM objects.
Which was precisely my point. The original poster (and the story) implied that the life of your mac would be longer than that of an equivalent PC.
I have, err, fond memories of system 7.1 on an LCII (which was just bearable but not for real work) and of 95 on a 486DX (which wasn't that bad, but mainly with 16-bit apps then). Those are not part of what Apple or MS generally consider the life of the system.
I wasn't suggesting that x86 manufacturers were any better, but because the systems you mention are still going (good for you), doesn't mean Apple support them.
My own experience of Apple is that by the time the thing comes down to a sensible price, it's no longer supported, and will not run current OSes or software.
is it any wonder that serial and parallel ports are still with us?
Just barely, in some cases. I just bought a new Toshiba Satellite 3000 that has no serial ports at all. 3 USB, firewire, smartmedia, parallel (still)... but no serial. I ended up buying a USB serial dongle, which actually gave me the benefit of RX/TX/CD lights on my serial port (why doesn't anyone do that normally? They're really useful!)
Firefox? Based on the crappy movie of the same name. IIRC the overlaid graphics for the HUD and so on were 1-bit really cruddy looking things. It had the same cool yoke that Star Wars had.
Re:Porn only real use for it
on
Immersive HDTV
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· Score: 2
How about travel, or most things you'd find on the Discovery channel?
Moving within the scene might not be so useful (or easy to implement outside), but a fully immersive view of lions on the serengheti or the Musee D'Orsai is something I'd like. Documentary TV could be much more involving.
Slashdot Mirror
Heh... I used to have a bunch of utilities for game development on my Atari ST that were called 'XYZ Turbo Pro Elite'.
Now, the Dreamcast game I'm working is a rewrite of spacewar: Super Spacewar EX3 Evolution Alpha (I love those Japanese game names).
Current naming fad seems to be '...ia' names. Prolly cause with fake words it's easier to get a domain name for them (and trademark, of course).
[do you get buns, or bread? ;-) sorry...]
Indeed, but the rest of their service sucks ass. It's the only thing stopping me moving at the moment. [and actually, the dusty corners of the online banking are a bit flaky - the standing order stuff for instance]
Example: I am looking to buy a car. Barclays, as a special offer to me as a customer of 12 years will give me 11.9% APR on a loan (normally 13.9%). Egg, without knowing anything about me will offer 8.9% on the same amount, both with income protection etc etc.
No interest, but immediate charges on OD. A web site that doesn't have branch locations or telephone numbers 'because they are subject to change soon'. Losers.
I've personally seen two buildings damaged by trains in my days as a commuter. Reading station before they rebuilt it had a train go straight off the end of it's line into the station, and a similar thing has happened in the past at Slough. You can still see the cutting-torch marks in the roof beams.
Don't assume trains stay on rails because thats where you put them.
IMs are at least 10 years old already. CMU had Zephyrgrams when I was at college, and I think that had been around a little while then.
IM as implemented by ICQ or Yahoo only really serves to have strangers interrupt me with incoherent junk rather than merely fill my mailbox with it. If only IM clients has as much brains as some mail clients do.
I tried mailing to ask them, and never got a reply. This didn't bode well, so I've sort of discounted them. IF is next.
I think it would be silly to change your bank simply because your OS doesn't support it.
Why? I use my OS more than I use my bank. If another bank (or any organisation for that matter) provides the service I want and the one that I currently use doesn't, then they lose! That's what free markets are all about.
My bank (Barclays in the UK) has a pretty crappy attitude to customers. A situation like this would probably be the nail in the coffin for them, as far as I'm concerned. I have other axes to grind with them though.
As it happens, my OS is Win2k and my main beef with other banks at the moment is the quality of their online banking. Barclays is one of the few that supports downloading statements in some useful format (albeit MS Money ofx files) so I can import them into something (actually MS Money at the moment). My credit card company (Egg) didn't seem to care at all about that, but thought that access via my TV was a useful thing.
As soon as I find a bank with decent online service, interest on current accounts, and a pro-customer attitude, I'm there.
(and another thing...)
The first ruggedised machines I can remember are the Husky portables and the GRiD Compass (not waterproof or anything but solid!).
The Husky series were Z80-based, and ran CP/M I think. I believe the US Army had some.
Old Pic of that, and it seems they are still going.
Going further back, the original IMPs used on ARPANet were ruggedized Honeywell DDP-516 - designed to be dropped from the cargo bay of aircraft.
I'd be interested to see what an IP Rate of 100 (or zero, whichever is better, also assuming a 100 point scale) could handle. Elephants can sit on it while you work maybe?
It's not to do with shock resistance, but with the seals.
It's two scales - the first digit is relating to dust ingress and the second to water, IIRC. The first goes from 0 to 6 and the second 0 to 8. The IP is for ingress protection.
More Here (I did RC)
On the other hand, if the problem is nasty people phoning in bomb threats (which I doubt is what you're talking about), there are still payphones for such people to use. The two zillion bomb threats that have been phoned in in the NYC area should be proof enough of that...
And they already know exactly where the payphone is. I suppose they could even be made with a hardwired geo-location in them to make it easier to tie into this new system. How is that a better choice (for anonymity) than a cell phone?
I don't see the relevance to bomb threats or whatever though - I can go into a supermarket, buy a pay-as-you-go phone for less than 100 UKP, use it once and bin it, or just give it to someone, it's not tied to me in any way, AFAIK. If I were the sort of person that might make bomb threats, it concievable I might not be averse to braking the law, and could therefore waive the 100 UKP cost of the phone too.
However, unless there is a cop or similar at or near the payphone, the effect is the same - you know where someone was 10 minutes ago by the time you get there.
IBM got out of it in the end by having Reagan kill the lawsuit when he was elected, not for any sensible legal reason though.
(What is a deltic??)
Or worse, let's say that Coca-cola has lots of ads in this system, and Pepsi pays me to ban those commercials.
Similar things already happen - U of MD at College Park changed to an all-Pepsi school as part of some exclusive deal with PepsiCo (including Taco Bell in the cafeteria, vending machines etc) a couple of years ago, much to the annoyance of my girlfriend, who's a Dr Pepper fan.
5. We can, as we have in the past, in times of war and of peace, reconcile the requirements of security with the demands of liberty.
7. We should resist efforts to target people because of their race, religion, ethnic background or appearance, including immigrants in general, Arab Americans and Muslims.
Ask some older Japanese Americans about these two clauses.
Can a college/isp/company/etc fire/kick off/expell someone for downloading MP3's anymore if they're doing it through this system?
/. in the middle of the afternoon with a company-provided net connection)
I imagine that your employment contract may have some nitpicky clause about expecting you to work rather that download music during working hours with company-provided resources, regardless of whether it's illegal or not. (he says, posting to
[even more OT: WTF is up with Slashdot's posting code lately? Several times in the last few days I've had the stupid thing dump my post compalaining about 'formkeys', and then upon going back to re-submit, it's throw away the text... bleh]
fair point :) substitute 'might logically' for 'can'.
The part of his (sounds like a fair assumption) complaint I was picking at was the 'profiting from the death of 6000' aspect, when the thing was made at least 2 months ahead of those deaths, so it obviously was not made to do that.
I didn't see anything in the article to suggest this thing was knocked up in two weeks. Do you really believe that prior to the 11th, there were no cameras or surveillance, and everything was dandy?
A quick look at the Austin Museum of Art site confirms that the exhibition was opened July 21st, and actually closed last week. If anything you can complain about the NYT running the story, but not the original exhibit.
Hmm - that's sounds like digital radio though. This is a carrier on FM radio (like teletext or closed-captions on TV signals) - it's been around since at least 1990 or so.
Is anyone aware of an online service where I could plug in a route (not a single location) and get a listing of stations by genre along the way? I imagine this would be a popular add-on to the many online route/map services but none seem to have anything like this. What I'd like to see would be something like a listing of public radio station by frequency along my route; others would presumably prefer country stations, pop or rock programming, etc.
This is what RDS (Radio Data System) does in the UK and Europe. Apparently this is available in the US too, although on a much more limited scale (it's more or less universal here, and any new car radio supports it).
You get station ident on the display, traffic alerts from nearby stations and automatic search for particular types of program (PTY) - have your radio search for classical stations.
Oops, forgot the link!
Halcyon Software
IIRC, Halcyon InstantASP does do ADO. It's a Java Servlet implementation of ASP and VBScript.
With native JDBC drivers (several vendors do them) for MS SQL, you could even keep your MS database, should you prefer to. It also has a Java-COM bridge to allow you to talk to your custom COM objects.
Which was precisely my point. The original poster (and the story) implied that the life of your mac would be longer than that of an equivalent PC.
I have, err, fond memories of system 7.1 on an LCII (which was just bearable but not for real work) and of 95 on a 486DX (which wasn't that bad, but mainly with 16-bit apps then). Those are not part of what Apple or MS generally consider the life of the system.
I wasn't suggesting that x86 manufacturers were any better, but because the systems you mention are still going (good for you), doesn't mean Apple support them.
My own experience of Apple is that by the time the thing comes down to a sensible price, it's no longer supported, and will not run current OSes or software.
is it any wonder that serial and parallel ports are still with us?
Just barely, in some cases. I just bought a new Toshiba Satellite 3000 that has no serial ports at all. 3 USB, firewire, smartmedia, parallel (still)... but no serial. I ended up buying a USB serial dongle, which actually gave me the benefit of RX/TX/CD lights on my serial port (why doesn't anyone do that normally? They're really useful!)
They build their computers to last
Good troll! I nearly ended up exhaling 7-up.
Firefox? Based on the crappy movie of the same name. IIRC the overlaid graphics for the HUD and so on were 1-bit really cruddy looking things. It had the same cool yoke that Star Wars had.
How about travel, or most things you'd find on the Discovery channel?
Moving within the scene might not be so useful (or easy to implement outside), but a fully immersive view of lions on the serengheti or the Musee D'Orsai is something I'd like. Documentary TV could be much more involving.
The porn couldn't hurt either though.